More Than Words
by Kitten Kisses
Summary: FE7. The last Lord Hector heard of Farina, she'd built a good reputation for herself doing mercenary work in Ilia. Fourteen years after the war, during a routine inspection in the city of Ostia, Hector finds a bedraggled Murphy stabled on the poor side of town. With the passing of time, people change...but could Farina have really done that bad for herself? COMPLETE!
1. With the Passing of Time

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** With the Passing of Time  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst  
**Words:** 1,426  
**Notes:** Special thanks to Fence for helping me flesh out some ideas. This takes place fourteen years after FE7 and assumes part of Farina's single ending: "Her skill earned her high fame, as well as high prices!" As an advanced warning, this is a chaptered story and the rating will be moving up to _M_ eventually, so proceed with caution. Written for Kender.

* * *

The pegasus gave her away. Hector's twice-annual inspection of the streets and businesses of Ostia—his only excuse to get outside and be around the type of people he liked—brought him through one of many stables where one could board their horse. It was on the poorer side of the city, and he hurried through the building just to see if anything looked out of place or unsafe about it.

As he passed by the very back stall, he saw, inside, a dirty winged horse. As soon as the beast saw him its ears pricked up only to flatten again, and it lunged for the door, teeth bared, snapping at him.

He knew whose pegasus that was. He _knew_. Without hesitation, he had the owner of the establishment summoned so that he could ask after the pegasus's rider.

The burly man who owned the building arrived within minutes and stared to the back of the darkened stall at the pegasus, who was rocking back and forth against the wall, pulling against his tether half-heartedly.

"I hope the wench'at owns 'im isn't in trouble for nothin', milord," he said, his hand scratching at the stubble that peppered his neck. "If'n I knew, I'd've never let her stable her blasted beast here."

"No," Hector assured him, "she's not in trouble for anything. Where might I find her?"

He shrugged. "She works during the day." His hands went to his breeches to hook into the belt loops. "She always comes back 'round dusk. Sleeps here, with her horse."

"Pegasus," Hector corrected before he could stop himself.

"My apologies, milord. Sure 'nuff, he's a pegasus."

"We'll return at dusk," he said.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. He knew that pegasus. He knew him. That was Murphy, and he belonged to Farina of Ilia. She'd been so proud of her winged horse that he always looked perfect—she'd taken great pains to keep him groomed during the war. But what he'd just seen…it wasn't right.

The last he'd heard of Farina, a few years after the war in a letter from her younger sister, she'd returned to Ilia and had made something of herself, continuing her mercenary work.

_She's built up a pretty good reputation,_ Florina had written. _But she still brags about that 20,000 gold you paid her so long ago_.

He hadn't seen Farina at all since the war; a lot could happen in that amount of time. A lot had, already.

After dusk, as promised, he returned to the stables. The owner met him outside.

"She's in there, milord," he assured him.

Ordering his guards to stay outside, he went in. The anticipation of seeing someone for the first time in fourteen years was thick and heavy and frightening. They'd been good enough friends at the end of the war, but she hadn't written to him even once to brag about her success or her freedom or even just to say hello. He wondered if she was still the same person, but a part of him knew better.

People changed. Fourteen years would certainly have changed her.

Still, he had an image in his mind of her from the war. What she'd been like back then—nervous and always looking over her shoulder, but generally upbeat, with a penchant for dirty jokes and a mouth to rival a sailor.

The image was shattered when he saw her bathed in the light from the doorway, bent over with Murphy's hoof across her knees, a hoof pick in one hand to dig out pebbles. At first glance, she looked much the same to him: small, with short hair and wide eyes.

But then she looked up and saw him standing there, and she bolted.

_Bolted_! At the sight of him. With a muffled, desperate, "No!"

Her reaction surprised him enough that she was past him and at the door before he could even think to turn around, but he gave chase, his heart pumping hard for the first time since the sealing of the Dragon's Gate.

The chase lasted ten minutes and came to an abrupt halt when she ran into a dead end. He was out of breath, but she was worse, her breathing high and gasping as if she couldn't calm down enough to breathe properly. When she tried to bolt past him again in the narrow alley by ducking beneath his arm at the last second, he was ready for her, expecting it, now.

Instead of running under his arm, she smacked right into it, coughing as her stomach pressed hard into his forearm.

His hand tightened around her waist.

He wanted to say, "Hey Farina," or, "Why'd you run?"

He wanted to ask her how she'd been, what she'd been up to.

A small part of him wanted to yell at her and demand to know how she'd come to this.

But he just stared as she pulled weakly away from him, rocking back and forth in a sick imitation of her pegasus, who was still tethered in his stall. Her hair was choppy and uneven, as if she'd taken shears to it instead of scissors, and it was limp and lifeless, like her tired eyes. She was way too thin because her clothes were too big, and she was still struggling to breathe, murmuring, "No, no, no," over and over as if she were afraid of him.

Her nose was still the same as he remembered it, though: crooked from what she claimed was a fight in a tavern, three against one; she had been outnumbered and had managed to win. She was still pretty, too—or would be, if she didn't look so unhealthy.

His guards caught up to him, panting, and he ignored them. "Farina," he said, gently, certain that something was wrong with her, wanting to assure her that she was fine, that he wasn't going to do anything to hurt her. But when he tried to finish his sentence, he found that he couldn't say anything at all.

What did you say to someone you hadn't seen in fourteen years? A connection to the past that you'd thought was severed?

She settled, at the sound of her name, and when her breathing evened out again, she said, a hard edge to her voice, "Let me go, Lord Hector."

So she did know him. And she'd run, anyway.

"You gonna run again?" he asked.

Her eyes had that glint to them once more, the one he remembered from the war. She looked over at his guards. She refused to look at him, though. "No."

He said nothing, he _did_ nothing…for a long moment. He couldn't even think.

"You gonna let me go?" she asked.

He watched her face carefully but she still wouldn't look at him.

"You're getting dirty." Her voice was sour.

"If you agree to come back with me," he told her, "then I'll let you go."

"Is that an order or a request?"

He didn't know. "A request," he said after a moment. "If you agree to come, I'll have them bring your horse, too."

She didn't even correct him. He never thought he'd want her to bite his head off for calling Murphy a horse, but he missed it. He missed it so much it hurt.

She softened at his offer. "Well," she said, glancing up at him very briefly before she looked back down at his arm, "if you'll give him a nice stall. With good lighting…"

"I'll give him Odysseus's stall," he assured her. The great black gelding would be fine in the second-nicest stall, anyway.

There was no conceivable way she could know who Odysseus was, but she seemed to infer it, and smiled just the smallest bit.

"Okay," she said, and he released his hold on her.

The entire ride to the castle, she pressed herself tightly against the far side of the bench as if to be as far away from him as possible.

Maybe she was scared of him, or maybe she was just afraid he was going to comment on how she smelled, which was pretty bad, but he expected nothing better from someone who slept in a horse stall.

Still, he had to wonder. How had she gotten there? What happened to the fame? The money?

And then he had to ask himself: _Why do I even care_?

But he knew the answer to that. They'd been friends, once upon a time, and if he hadn't been such a coward, maybe they could've been more.


	2. Before and After the War

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title: **Before and After the War  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words:** 1,556  
**Notes:** Rating is still T for this chapter. Kender shed a single tear of crystal pairing angst so I updated this quickly. #blamekender

* * *

Time had been divided for those who fought against Nergal. When the battle was over, there were two time periods: before the war, and after it. For some, life had scarcely begun before the war, and for others, the war was where it ended.

Farina hadn't expected anything to come of the relationship that had sprung up between Lord Hector and herself. By the time the war had ended, they'd been friendly enough, speaking freely in front of everyone, sharing jokes that were innocent except when they had beat-around-the-bush deeper meanings that neither of them would admit to but both of them knew about.

There had always been something there, between them: a tension. Maybe it was sexual. It had frightened her at first—that there could be something about him that made her feel vulnerable—but eventually she'd accepted it.

She never found out how he'd felt about it. It was the one thing that she felt she wasn't allowed to bring up, the one thing they absolutely could not discuss.

Maybe he was attracted to her against his will. He'd always struck her as the careless sort, the kind of man who didn't mind the idea of a fling every now and then with someone he liked the look of. But he'd never tried anything with her.

She'd never understood that; she was thin with nice hips and breasts that fit perfectly in his hand, which they'd both found out on accident when he'd stumbled into her one evening, a hand out in front of him to find something to steady himself with

She hadn't forgotten that he'd squeezed her, then, just once. Maybe that had been a reflex. His face had reddened and he'd apologized. She'd blushed, too, embarrassed that she'd rather he do it again than apologize for it.

She didn't look at him, now, seated against the far side of his carriage as they rolled toward the castle at a steady clip. He would still be handsome. They were both older, but she knew that would never change about him.

How long had it been since she'd seen him? She tried to think. She'd been seventeen when she'd joined the war effort. She was thirty-one, now. Fourteen years?

She risked a glance at him, just one, and found him staring off into space, probably wondering at how long it'd been since he'd last seen her, probably wondering about how bedraggled she was, how much she smelled—probably wondering what had happened to her.

He looked handsome. Dressed in lovely clothes. He still wore his hair the same, brushed back with a few wayward strands hanging down as if to mock him. She'd always thought that made him look even more attractive, though he'd often complained about how irritating it was.

* * *

The ride back was silent but for their breathing, and as much as she wanted to speak, she stayed silent, feeling her rank so keenly that it hurt. Before the war had ended, she'd barely noticed her social station because the whole group was so informal. She always used Lord Hector's title, but it had been different, then. Now he was the most powerful man she'd ever met, ruling Ostia, which still sat at the head of the Lycian League.

When the carriage stopped at the castle he offered her his arm, but she was overly aware of the staring and the wide eyes. She was no lady. Maybe fourteen years ago she'd have taken his arm, laughing, and she'd have cracked a dumb joke about it, too. She might have said something like, "If you're gonna take me up to your bed, Lord Hector, the _least_ you could do would be to carry me there!"

Embarrassed of her appearance, she refused his arm, crossing her arms self-consciously across her chest as she watched the ground at his heels.

He pointed out his room when they passed it, and at the very end of that same hall, on the left-hand side, he opened up a door. "This was Serra's room," he told her, and gestured for her to go inside.

Hesitantly, she did. It was a rather plain room. What she remembered of Serra was so vibrant, so colorful; it was weird to think she had once lived in this room. "What happened to her?" she asked cautiously, the first words she'd spoken to him since they'd arrived at Castle Ostia.

His expression betrayed his surprise at her question. "She married Sain," he told her, "but he sickened and died shortly after their son was born."

"Oh," she said, softly.

Lord Hector shrugged. "Oswin proposed right away, before the funeral. Said it wasn't right to leave poor Serra like that, with no help and a baby. They live in the country, have a daughter together."

She was relieved that Serra was still alive. She'd probably taken her color with her. A happy-sad thought.

"I'll send you up a bath," he said. She knew he was trying to sound tactful, but it still hurt to be told that she needed it.

But it was the truth, so she nodded.

"Anything in the closet or bureau you can have."

She forced herself not to look down at her filthy, old clothes. "Why am I here?" she asked, instead, staring out the window.

He hesitated. "I don't know. I couldn't just leave you there, I—"

"I was doing fine," she said. "I can take care of myself."

When she glanced up at him, she could see him grinding his teeth, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes deepening. He wanted to argue with her. He wanted that more than _anything_ in that moment.

But he didn't. He really had matured. It was so strange to see. Maybe she ought to do the same, then.

"Thanks, though," she offered.

He gave her a tense smile and moved toward the door. "Get some rest, after. I'll go make sure they put Murphy in the right stall. I think I forgot to tell them to feed him a noble carrot, too."

He left before she could say anything, for which she was grateful. Her pegasus wasn't so noble anymore, but that Lord Hector remembered that stupid old joke made her feel like she hadn't been forgotten, and as she turned away from the doorway, she used the palm of her left hand to scrub the tears off of her face.

* * *

Farina wasn't sure how she felt about seeing Lord Hector again. She had purposefully been avoiding the castle, and therefore him, since she'd crash-landed in Ostia a few years earlier. He'd always tried to take care of her, and she hated the unspoken idea that she somehow couldn't take care of herself. For him to see her _actually_ unable to care for herself would be so humiliating that she didn't think she could handle it.

She'd been right about that. If she could do it over again, she wouldn't have run from him. She'd have put her hands on her hips and said, "Lord Hector? Now what the hell do you want?"

She'd just been so shocked to see him standing there that she hadn't known what to do. Her mind had simply reverberated with one word: no. No, this couldn't be happening, no, he was not finding her like this, no, he was not going to see how inferior she was to him now.

So she'd run, because it was the only thing she could think to do. Then he'd cornered her, caught her, and she'd been so embarrassed that it had been a physical pain in her chest. The one man she'd had feelings for in her life, the one guy whom she felt comfortable touching or shoving or goofing off with, the only man who could unknowingly turn her on with just a _look_…had to be the one to find her living just a notch above swine.

If it had been anyone else—like Matthew, or Dart, or Lucius—she'd have just shrugged and admitted it.

"Yeah," she'd have said. "Farina of Ilia's a little down on her luck these days."

But it had been Lord Hector.

The hot water of the bath felt so good that she didn't care that it was the end of summer and the air was still stifling. She'd hardly cried at all in the last fourteen years, but the bath was just so nice that she couldn't help it.

Serra had left very few things, but there were shoes the right size, and stockings, undergarments, and even a few long, simple, flowing dresses, which Farina was certain she'd never seen Serra wear, before.

The small looking glass in the corner afforded her the first glance of her own reflection that she'd had in years. She could only barely recognize herself. She had lost weight, especially in her face.

But being clean made her feel more like her old self. She turned the mirror to face the wall, so that she wouldn't have to see her reflection again, and moved to the bed.

The mattress was hard, and flat, and the blankets were hot, but it felt like heaven against her tired body. She fell asleep early, unable to decide if she dreaded speaking to Lord Hector more than she looked forward to it.


	3. His What-If Woman

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title: **His What-If Woman  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words:** 2,452  
**Notes:** Chapter Three. This chapter is also rated T. A warning that things will get heavy with description from here-on out. I'm not awesome enough to continue mimicking a descriptionless style. It hurts me to keep detail out. I'm no Fitzgerald.

* * *

Murphy still didn't care much for him. He snapped once, twice, and only stopped because Hector held out a carrot—a genuine peace offering.

During the war, Hector had offered him apples, sugar cubes, and even a mug of ale—which made Farina angry even though Murphy had slurped the entire thing down. Carrots were by far the pegasus's favorite food, and the only thing a person could use to win his affection.

Immediately, Murphy's mood changed. Hector wasn't very good with horses—or any animal, really—but he reached over the stall door to rub Murphy's nose.

"You're fine now," he said, but noticed the animal's heavy step when he shifted his weight to the other side. "Shoes?" he asked, bewildered, but Murphy didn't have an answer for him. Instead he arched his neck to try and find another carrot, his soft lips nibbling at Hector's side as if there were a bag or a pocket there he might find treats in.

He chuckled but pushed the pegasus's head away. "Sorry," he told him, smiling a little, though it fell away from his face when he took in the sad shape Murphy was in. Farina must have fallen on hard times if she'd let Murphy get so dirty, if she'd let his mane tangle up like that, if she'd let his hooves grow too long and his knees scar over. That wasn't like her at all. She always spent more money on the dumb creature than she did on herself. Judging by her appearance, though, maybe that hadn't changed much.

* * *

Sleep didn't come easy to him. He'd never considered himself imaginative, but his mind conjured up a hundred ways Farina could have ended up in Ostia. How long had she been living in the city right under his nose? She could have come to the castle; her name was on a list at the gate. Why hadn't she? Too proud to ask for help? Too embarrassed?

When he awoke after a fitful sleep, he went two rooms down the hall and opened the door, smiling to see Lilina in her nightgown, sprawled out on the floor playing with her toy animals.

"Too old to be picked up?" he asked, smiling.

She scrambled to her feet and jumped into his arms. "Not yet, Daddy," she said.

"Good."

She kissed his cheek and made a face, "Ew, you're scratchy." She prodded at his chin. "You can't go to your meetings like that."

"Why not?" he asked, lowering her back to the floor.

"Because it's gross."

Hector supposed eight-year-olds needed no better explanation for why something had to go. "You need to get dressed," he told her. "You can play for another hour but get dressed first."

"Okay," she agreed, and moved toward her closet.

He had to sit through two meetings—one about raising taxes, and the other about rising tension in Bern—but then he had the rest of the day to do whatever he wanted…so long as he finished his paperwork in a timely manner.

Only one thing was on his mind, and that was Farina.

He'd woken that morning half-wondering if maybe the night before had been some kind of wonderful-terrible dream, but Hector rarely dreamed, and certainly not of anything like that. His dreams about Farina always involved her landing on his balcony with her damned flying pony. She jumped down and walked through the glass-paneled doors like she owned the place. From there his dreams of her differed: sometimes they'd just talk, or have a friendly argument, sometimes they'd hold hands, or hold one another, or make love, his fingers tangled in her short hair, her breath tickling his ear as she told him that she loved him. His dreams of her were hazy and happy and warm like late June.

He'd never dream of finding her looking so dirty and thin and unlike herself. As much as he liked being needed, he'd never want to see Farina like that, not for the sake of feeling good about himself in a dream. Never had he imagined or truly wanted her to _need_ his help.

He'd thought for years that she was living a good life, that she could, literally, at any given moment, land on his balcony and walk into his study only to lean over his desk and say something cute or witty or aggravating while she left her dumb horse in the doorway to chew on his drapes. He'd always hoped it'd happen…but it never had.

The night before had definitely been real.

His personal space consisted of a receiving room, a study to the right, a wide windowed sunroom on the left, and a bath and bedchamber straight in. He waited in the sunroom, and had a servant escort her from down the hall.

She arrived within a few minutes, aware, no doubt, of the fact that he would summon her sooner or later to speak with him.

When they both had tea and pastries he dismissed the servants and turned to her. He knew his once-over would make her uncomfortable, but he felt he had to do it anyway. She looked better than she had the night before; her face was clean and her eyes brighter, alert. He could see the scar that ran from just behind her left ear to her collarbone—he remembered it from the war. The dress she'd borrowed from Serra still hung off of her, but he'd been right; she was still pretty.

He didn't care much for tea, but he drank it anyway. As much as he'd thought about her the night before, and between his meetings, he still found himself at a loss for words. There were so many things he could say, but nothing felt right, not after fourteen years, and not to say to her. She'd _meant_ something to him, once. Maybe she still did.

She broke the silence first. "Is Murphy all right?" She took a large bite out of a piece of a plain, flaky sort of bread.

_Elimine_, he thought. She looked so hungry. He'd forgotten to send food up to her the night before, hadn't he? Who knew when she'd last eaten! He pushed his plate toward her as his appetite suddenly fled.

"I gave him a carrot," he said. "He seems to like me now."

She smiled at him, but he couldn't tell what she was thinking. "Bet he appreciated it, huh?" she asked him. "He hasn't had a good carrot in a while."

"Why did you put shoes on him?" he asked abruptly, before he could stop himself. "You were always so insistent that he oughtn't have shoes before—remember when Lowen brought it up? You almost bit his head off."

"He needs them now," she said, both hands wrapped around her teacup.

"But you never wanted your horse to have shoes _before_, so why now?" He chose his words deliberately.

She hated it when he called Murphy a horse.

But she didn't say anything. It wasn't a fluke if it happened twice. It wasn't an oversight.

She just stared at him as she drank the last of her tea. When she set the cup down, she picked at the pastry from his plate, pulling it close to her, but she kept her eyes on him. When he was almost ready to explode to demand an answer from her to explain her odd behavior, she spoke, her voice oddly calm and even:

"Because that's what he is, now: a horse."

"What?" His eyebrows shot up before he could control his reaction. Murphy still had _wings_—right? Yeah, he'd seen them.

She nodded before she swallowed the food in her mouth. "He can't fly anymore."

Hector knew what that meant even if he didn't know how or why it'd happened: Murphy was useless. A pegasus that couldn't fly? He wasn't good for anything, and he was gelded so she couldn't even breed him. That meant he was no better than an ordinary pony, except he was small and kind of frail and his wings would get in the way.

So then why did she keep him around?

He knew the answer to that before he even asked himself the question. During the campaign they'd fought, when Farina wasn't busy trying to get other people to admit that they made less money than she did, she'd be with Murphy. She didn't have any close friends in the group. Hector had Eliwood, Lyn had Florina, Erk had Serra (even if he didn't want her), Sain had Kent, Pent had Louise…but Farina'd had…well, her pegasus. Better than nothing, he supposed, but still kind of sad.

He remembered her saying once that she didn't expect friendship out of anyone. He hoped she hadn't reverted back to that mindset.

He leaned back in his straight-backed chair. "How long have you been here?" he asked.

An odd expression flickered over her face, and it took her a moment to answer. Hector wondered if maybe she was trying to decide if she wanted to tell to truth or lie when she finally said, "Three years or so."

He let out an irritated breath. "Three years," he said. "And you didn't once come here?"

"Why would I?"

Her question-answer was so matter-of-fact that he felt taken aback. "Why _wouldn't_ you?" he asked her in return. "We were friends."

"That was a long time ago," she told him.

"I haven't seen Eliwood in years," he said. "That doesn't mean he's not a friend. Why should you be any different?"

"Because I was a battle buddy," she said, her mouth twitching at the corners, giving away her amusement to use that irritating old phrase Mark had made up. "Then I was a mercenary. And finally I became a nobody."

"You are not a nobody."

"Yes I am," she said, staring at him again. "If I hadn't been working on Murphy last night, do you really think you would have recognized me?"

_I would have looked twice_, he thought, because little insignificant things reminded him of her.

A harvest moon always made him think of the evening she'd confessed to him that she'd been hurt badly once, and the only other person who knew was Fiora. He'd tried to forget the sound of her voice from that night: sad, soft—and he remembered instead what it felt like to just hold her for a while.

A stiflingly hot day reminded him of when she'd teasingly asked him to teach her how to swim and he'd obliged; half the group had joined them, tossing water at each other and carrying on as if they were on holiday instead of fighting a war.

The entire month of June filled his mind with her. After a terrible fight where half their number had been badly injured—the day she'd sustained her neck injury—she'd whispered to him as he passed by her, "Hey, Lord Hector. Today was my birthday." His response had been to stop, to kneel next to her, and press his lips carefully against her cheek.

"Hey," he'd told her. "Happy birthday."

Since the war's end, he'd gone days or weeks without thinking of her, sometimes, but little things like the weather or the time of day brought her back. She was always there in the back of his mind, his "what-if" woman, his only real regret.

"I'd know you anywhere," he said to answer her question, his voice too emotional from his long pause and too many memories.

Her gaze dropped to the table. "Did you figure out why I'm here?"

He had a million reasons, now. She needed someone. And truth be told, he was starving for adult company—companionship. Elimine, he missed Eliwood. And Lyn. Even Serra and Oswin.

"Because I missed Ninian's wedding," he told her, his voice sincere, "and I missed her funeral. I missed the farewell party for Lyn in Caelin. I missed Sain and Serra's wedding, and Sain's funeral, and Oswin and Serra's wedding, and I wasn't there for my daughter's birth or my wife's death." He took a deep breath. "Even if you don't consider me a friend," he said, and held up a hand when he saw her mouth open, "I consider you one. After all we went through to fight against Nergal… Farina, we took down a _dragon_, and I couldn't even tell my wife about it."

She didn't seem to know what to say to that.

He didn't either. "I know that sounds stupid," he added, lamely. "But I can't visit my friends even when they need me." He thought of Eliwood's tearstained letter that arrived a record week-and-a-half after Ninian's passing, begging for some kind of comfort he just couldn't provide. "So you're here visiting me. For as long as you want."

He wanted to add _forever_, but that was silly. And selfish.

Thirty-one years old and he was lonely for even the most basic of friendships. Since the war had ended, he'd longed for the company of people who had fought with him, because they knew him like nobody else did. They knew what it was like to carry such a deep secret. They knew how hard it was not to tell everyone.

But only a couple of years passed before people stopped visiting, before Lyn abdicated, before the letters stopped coming. He'd had to adjust to stepping into his brother's shoes after killing a dragon. It had been stressful. And he'd had nobody to talk to about it. Sain and Serra had lived in the castle but they were married. Matthew was always away. Oswin was solid company but not a friend so much as an advisor.

And then, in the midst of his stress and his loneliness, he'd had to get married. To a stranger.

Something changed in Farina's expression, softened a little, he thought. Maybe she understood the things he'd said outright as well as the things he couldn't admit.

She smiled a little. "On one condition," she told him, and he expected her to demand gold or nicer pillows or something ludicrous like his own bed moved into what was now her room.

"And what's that?" he asked, eager and willing to play their old game. He folded his hands and placed his chin atop them.

"You shave that crap off of your face," she told him. "It makes you look too scruffy."

He blinked at her for a long moment, and then he laughed. He laughed and laughed until his sides ached and his eyes were red.

By the holy staff of Saint Elimine, he thought as he watched her amused but bewildered smile, he had missed her. So he told her so.


	4. Walking the Proverbial Tightrope

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Walking the Proverbial Tightrope  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **1,598  
**Notes:** Chapter Four. Kind of dialogue heavy. Run while you can.

* * *

She didn't know why, but she believed him.

Later she would decide that it was the relief on his face that did it—that told her he was telling the truth—and the fact that, for a while, he'd looked very far away before insisting he'd know her anywhere—as if he'd find her a hundred lifetimes from that moment and still know exactly who she was no matter what she looked like.

Her smile fell just the smallest bit at his confession, said so happily and with such a release of tension that it hurt that she couldn't say it back. She wanted to. The urge came suddenly, automatically, as if she were saying, _you're welcome_ in response to _thank you_.

She needed time to think about it. She'd missed his conversation, and his face, and the way he smelled, but did that mean she'd missed _him_? She didn't know. She didn't have the time she needed to think it over, to decide for herself how she felt, so she hurried the conversation along.

"I'm sorry," she offered, quietly, "about your wife."

He looked surprised. "Rosanne died years ago."

She looked away. "Still…"

She could feel his eyes on her for a long moment, but when she looked up, he was looking at her hands. She twisted them together and hid them under the table. He looked at her face. "I didn't love her," he said, but there was a furrow in his brow.

There had been something there, though, she thought, and wanted to argue with him about it, wanted to hear him admit it despite the fact that she knew it would hurt to hear. But maybe she deserved to hear it.

He might not have loved her, but he had cared, at least a little. He had at least felt respect for her.

"A daughter?" she asked, instead.

He smiled: a genuine, unrestrainable smile. "Yes," he said.

She couldn't help the spark of jealousy that flared up, but she pushed it down immediately; she'd always wished he'd talk of her looking like that, like she was the only person in the world who meant anything to him. It was stupid to be jealous of a child, least of all his daughter.

"How old?"

"Eight."

"If she's anything like you, she's a troublemaker."

His smile just widened. "She's—" he paused, and she wondered if he was going to say she was an angel, that she was perfect, that she was _everything_, but he surprised her by saying, "—great."

She smiled back at him. She couldn't be unhappy when he seemed so pleased. And proud—he was so proud of this daughter of his.

She wanted to ask the girl's name but she was afraid to.

"How are you?" she asked him. She knew he'd ask her, and the only way she'd ever answer would be if she beat him to the punch—if she _won_. "How're you _really_?"

He didn't seem surprised by her question, and leaned against the back of his chair; the wood creaked ominously. "How am I now?" he asked in return. "Or how have I _been_?"

"Both."

"I've been…fair," he said after a pause. "It was difficult at first, but I think I've done all right."

She nodded; yes, he was doing a fine job. He'd really pushed himself hard from the get-go.

That made it easier to accept that she'd done the right thing by staying out of his way.

"And now?"

"Things are going well, but it gets…boring…at the top."

She knew he meant lonely. Did he have any close friends anymore? "Yeah, I guess," she agreed.

She really didn't know. It was lonely at the bottom, too.

"What about you?" he asked her, gaze unfaltering.

She stared right back. "I think you know the answer to that."

"I'd rather hear it from you," he said, shortly, "than infer it for myself."

"I was doin' really well for a while." It was so hard to admit. She'd been so close. "But I'm back to surviving."

His expression changed. She couldn't tell what he was thinking beyond the fact that he wanted to ask her a thousand questions.

"I'm glad you're all right," he said.

He really had matured. She had expected him to push for at least one answer. Maybe he was afraid to push her too far. That would certainly be a first.

"I'll stay here," she told him. "For a little while, anyway. I was kidding about the scruff, but could I ask another favor, instead?"

"Of course."

She took a deep breath. She was embarrassed to ask for something so big, but it would be for the best. "Would you let Murphy stay here—forever?"

He didn't say anything. He just _looked_ at her. As if he thought that by looking long enough, he could tell what it was she was thinking.

"I—" she hurried on, to explain herself, but forgot what she'd meant to say and had to start over. "He won't live much longer. He's not well."

After another long pause and a few moments of her wringing her hands anxiously under the table, he finally said, "Yeah, that'd be fine."

She sighed. "Thanks. That means a lot." She already felt better about everything. If she stayed a little while, she'd have a nice visit and then it'd be back to the city for her; at least Murphy would be well cared for, though. The thought was so nice it hurt. He was really doing her a huge favor; pegasi weren't cheap to keep around, least of all a grounded one.

"I know." He gave her a strained smile and she had to force herself not to ask after it.

"So," she ventured, ready to talk about anything but her, "Sain and Serra were married after the war, huh?"

His countenance seemed to change at this, and he smiled. "Oh yeah… I thought it was shocking, but…"

They talked about other people for a few hours, recalling silly things like Merlinus's outraged stammer, Lyn's long hair, and the duets Rebecca and Lowen used to sing while cooking up dinner.

Neither Farina nor Lord Hector broached the subject concerning what had once been between them, though it hovered just below the surface of his eyes and lurked in the way she held onto everything he said as if searching for a deeper meaning.

She knew it would come up, sooner or later, but not yet. It was too early. They both needed some time to think about it. It was too important to ruin with a thoughtless question.

He took her hand when he wished her a good night. He didn't kiss it—he just held on for a long moment, eyes on her fingers as if he feared that letting go meant he'd never see her again.

She tried smiling at him, as if to assure him that she would still be there in the morning, but he still said, "I'll see you tomorrow?" with a question on the end, as if he needed confirmation.

"Sure," she told him, her smile turning sad. "If you want."

"Yes." His reply was instant, right on the heels of hers. "I do. Very much." He moved a half step forward as if he meant to hug her, but then his shoulders tensed and he backed away, squeezing her hand. Uncertain. Shy? She wondered at it. "Good night, Farina."

"Good night," she echoed.

* * *

They did not speak the next day. In the evening she decided to try visiting him herself, but she could hear his voice, loud and irritated, all the way down the hall, and when she got closer to his door, she realized that the guards posted outside looked uncomfortable. She gave them a bit of a smile, recognizing the tone of voice he was using. Lord Hector was not as angry as he sounded. It was great acting on his part, though.

She heard a frustrated sigh and the quiet sound of a slippered foot hitting the stone floor. "Really? Ugh!" a young girl exclaimed sourly from just behind her. "Someone went and made Daddy mad _again_!" By the time the words registered and she turned around, all she saw was the girl's back disappearing into a room just a couple of doors down.

_That_ was Lord Hector's daughter? She wanted another look, but realized that she'd missed her chance.

For some reason she'd always imagined a child of his would look almost exactly like him—broad-shouldered and with a strong jaw. Then again, she'd always assumed he'd have a son; she just couldn't picture him paying much attention to a daughter. The thought had saddened her, once upon a time, because she'd always wanted a daughter…maybe just to undo all of the bad things that had happened to her sisters by having a little girl, giving her everything she'd never had.

It was a silly memory. She'd never have any children; it wasn't worth thinking about.

Even though she knew Lord Hector wasn't half as angry as he sounded, she still had no right to disturb him when he was busy, and decided to wait until he summoned her again, himself, so that she wouldn't cause any trouble. She just didn't have it in her to act as immature as she once had, even if it did sound like fun to bust in on him just to scold him for shouting at other people.

She went back to her room and fell asleep early, wondering at a great many things.


	5. Embarrassment and Pride

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Embarrassment and Pride  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **2,384  
**Notes:** Chapter Five. Lilina is cute as heck.

* * *

Hector knew the difference between having sex and making love. As a teenager, he'd made fun of Eliwood for using the latter term: it had always sounded so stupid to him, so silly, because love wasn't something you _made_, it was something you _felt_.

Then he'd gotten married.

And he'd learned that sex was a marital obligation, the bare-minimum term used to describe procreation. She wasn't supposed to like it, and he was supposed to push into her anyway, finish, and then leave her to sleep alone. Or to cry.

It was all very systematic.

He'd discussed it with his wife on the wedding night, trying to gauge how she felt about it and what they ought to do, because he'd never been so nervous in his life. He'd had sex with strangers before—just sex, because love had never been involved—but the other party had always been willing, had always been _ready_.

He thought it'd only be fair if he took care of her needs, too, but Rosanne had been displeased with the idea; women weren't supposed to _want_ sex, let alone like it, and the only type of sex they were allowed to have was traditional with the man finishing and the woman lying there like a dead fish. Hector hated it.

"I find I am not fond of it," Rosanne had said to him after their first time, when he'd asked for her honesty. "I would rather get it over with quickly."

He knew he'd hurt her but he'd tried not to. He'd tried to be careful. She might have been consenting but she'd been so tense he knew she didn't really want to. She just wanted to get it over with, and the whole thing was so loveless he found that he did, too.

"Just one kid's all I ask," he said, feeling his confidence slip. If they could just get her pregnant they wouldn't even have to talk to one another again.

That seemed to bolster her spirits and he had to respect her for that. He'd chosen her to marry out of all of the other Lycian women because she'd been polite and quiet and pretty in the normal sort of way.

He'd picked her because she'd never, ever remind him of the fact that he had been a coward. Neither of them were comfortable around the other; they participated only to fulfill a duty. But it had worked for them, and best of all, most relieving, was the way that she just laid there, quietly, impatient and bored and unhappy when they had sex, because it ensured that he'd never really want it, and he'd never say a name, least of all the _wrong_ name.

There was definitely a difference between having sex and making love. One was soulless and meant nothing, and the other—well, he didn't know. But he could imagine. And he had, many times.

Rosanne had been small and delicate; childbirth ruined her health. Six months after Lilina was born, Rosanne died.

She had been a strong woman in her own right, though he could never say with any honesty that he loved her even the smallest bit.

But she'd given him a daughter, and for that he was very grateful to her.

Lilina took after her father. She had been born with her mother's nose, but at four years old, she'd fallen down the stairs and it had broken, leaving it slightly crooked. She had Hector's smile, and the proud lift of his chin, and his eyes. It was remarkable, really, that a child could look so much like one parent and so little like the other.

His daughter's hand on his arm snapped him out of his thoughts.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her blue eyes wide with curiosity.

He gave her a faltering smile, a quiet, "Nothing," but he ought to have known that his own daughter would be more perceptive than that.

"What made you mad earlier?"

"What?" He closed the book he had been reading to her—some silly adventure story she'd insisted she wanted to hear.

She leaned back against her pillow. "Everyone could hear you in the corridor, Daddy."

"Oh." He hadn't realized he'd been so loud.

"Someone was waiting to talk to you. You scared her off, I think."

"Who?" he asked.

"I don't know. I didn't see her face."

He wondered if it had been Farina. It was too late to speak with her now, though—she'd be asleep. "I'll find her tomorrow," he assured his daughter.

"Okay," she told him. "Don't forget—you promised I could go riding with you in the afternoon."

"I haven't forgotten, Lilina." He smoothed back her long hair, wanting to tousle it but aware of how nicely she'd managed to braid it. On her own, too. "But if you give Irene trouble again I might have to—"

She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "Yeah, yeah," she said, sounding too much like him. "I shall be sweet enough that she will think I am a different person entirely!"

"Good." He leaned over to kiss her forehead and stood. "Good night," he said.

"Good night, Daddy."

On the way back to his room, he thought over his day; it had been too busy to see Farina even though he really had wanted to. He had so many questions for her—so many curiosities. What was wrong with Murphy, exactly? Why was she willing to ask him for her pegasus's safekeeping but not her own?

* * *

"I'm not trying to recapture the past," he said to Farina the next day over tea when their conversation lapsed.

Her posture was stiff again, as if she couldn't truly relax. "I didn't think that you were."

Silence again, for a long moment. It was a beautiful day outside. Hector looked forward to going riding with his daughter later, even if he was a terrible horseman. "I just thought you ought to know," he finally said to her.

Her expression remained neutral for a time, but when she set her teacup on the table in front of her, her eyes narrowed as she chewed on her lower lip. "I'm not the same person I was fourteen years ago," she told him, quietly. "And I suspect that you're not, either."

"I—" he began, ready to defend himself, but he finally shook his head when his thoughts came up blank. "You're right," he said. "I've changed."

She smiled at him then. "Yeah, you have."

"In all good ways, I hope," he teased.

He expected a serious reply from her, but she surprised him with a laugh: "Yes," she said. "You've matured a lot."

Fourteen years ago he'd probably have been offended at the idea of being told he'd matured, especially from Farina, but it felt like a compliment to him, and proved her point: he had changed.

"I had to step into Uther shoes so quickly," he said, a pleased smile in place. He'd been so depressed about his lot in life at times that it had been painful, but that was all water under the bridge, now. "Then I found myself married, with a kid…"

"I bet it was rough." She sounded sympathetic, and fourteen years ago she'd probably have laughed at the idea of him being responsible and mature—laughed at his wealthy-man problems.

Nothing made a person grow up faster than having a child. Farina didn't have any children—he knew because she would have told him if she had. She'd cry. And, he thought, he would, too.

"I'd like you to meet my daughter sometime," he said suddenly, seriously, unable to stop himself.

"I saw her," she offered, "for just a moment, in the corridor outside yesterday evening."

His eyebrows lifted. "So you _were_ the one she mentioned."

She looked a bit taken aback. "I didn't do anything weird," she said. "I was just standing there. I thought it might be better not to bother you…even if you weren't as angry as you sounded."

He grinned. "Was I really so transparent? I thought I did pretty well." Truth be told, he had been upset, but he'd shouted twice as loud to make himself sound even angrier.

"You're a terrible actor."

"You're right." He didn't bring up Lilina again, and definitely not by name. He was waiting to introduce her at the right time—the perfect time. As selfish as it was, he'd always wondered what Farina might think of her.

He could have them both join him for tea the next afternoon, he thought.

After watching her for a moment, simply because he liked to look at her, he always had, and he'd missed it, he thought to ask, "What happened to Murphy?"

It was a weighty question; her shoulders sagged immediately. "Oh," she said, but didn't answer his question.

"Farina?"

She started, lifting her chin. "Sorry," she murmured. "Murphy and I were on a mission, here in Ostia. Well, just outside it." She glanced down at the table, wringing her hands in her lap. "He took a really bad hit—we…I mean…he was in bad shape. Wing torn half-off."

Leaning over, he touched her arm. "You were in bad shape, too," he guessed.

Her eyes flickered back up to him. "Something like that," she said.

He felt sick.

"I'm fine, now," she hurried to say. "I found a couple of healers to work on him but they could just barely fuse everything together, and it was after days of work; the muscle will never be strong enough to fly."

The sick feeling wouldn't go away. "That's why you had him shod," he guessed.

"Clipped his wings, too." He heard the unspoken, _as much as it hurt to do it_.

"Why didn't you come to me? I could have helped."

Few healers were willing to expend their own energy to heal animals—and those that were certainly wouldn't do it for cheap. She'd probably spent all her gold getting the two of them fixed up after the accident.

She stared at him for a long time, and then opened her mouth, saying nothing as she shook her head. Finally, she seemed to find the words, or perhaps just the courage to say them.

"Because," she said, so matter-of-factly it reminded him of the Farina he'd known fourteen years ago, "I couldn't stand the thought of you seeing me like that."

"Why?" He'd rather have had the chance to help her. Whatever pride she'd been saving up had done little to help her in the end, after all.

But he realized it hadn't just been pride when she simply shook her head in response, looking away.

* * *

Hector wasn't very good with horses, but every now and then he could appreciate a ride; he wondered if Farina found some kind of freedom in getting to actually fly instead of being grounded, but he supposed it didn't matter anymore.

It hurt to know that Farina had been in Ostia for three years and hadn't even once tried to see him. Rosanne had been cold in her grave long before Farina found herself in Ostia, so he didn't think she'd been afraid of causing any trouble. It had to have been her damnable pride—and more.

Had she been afraid that he'd make fun of her? Laugh about how she hadn't made it rich like she'd hoped?

It would have been the last thing on his mind. The very last thing.

He would have touched her face—felt the curve of her cheek against the palm of his hand—and then held her, held her to feel her breathe, to know she was alive and _real_.

The stable doors were wide open, and he turned an immediate right inside to spend a moment with Murphy. He felt that he could identify with the pegasus, now; they had some things in common.

But Murphy wasn't alone.

On an upturned bucket stood Lilina, her dress smeared with dirt. Murphy remained quite still, his eyes rolling toward the top of his head as he snorted; his forelock shifted.

"What are you doing?" he asked, startled.

"Daddy!" she exclaimed, turning to grin at him with a comb in her mouth and her fingers buried in Murphy's mane. "Look what I found! A _real_ pegasus!"

At first he just stared, and then he laughed. "I thought you wanted to go riding."

"I've changed my mind."

"You're going to torture this poor creature?" He didn't know where Lilina had gotten her fondness for animals. He liked them well enough, but he didn't think it had come from him.

"Daddy!" she scolded. "Of course I'm not torturing him. Look, I've already got his mane half done!"

It did look a lot better; she'd gotten the tangles out. But he knew that Murphy was temperamental. He'd snapped at him when he'd first seen him out in the city, after all. "Well," he said, feeling guilty, "why don't we take him out and wash him up?"

Lilina brightened. "Ohh, that's a great idea! Did you hear that, boy? We're going to get you pretty again!"

Later in the evening, as dusk fell, Hector stepped back to view Lilina's handiwork. Murphy's mane was braided and tied with ribbons, and he was clean and looked content.

"How did he get so dirty?" Lilina asked as they headed back to the castle.

Hector had to think of a tactful, simple way to answer the question. "He was hurt," he said. "He can't fly anymore, and his owner…" He sighed, remembering how Farina had asked him to take care of Murphy but hadn't mentioned herself. "His owner isn't able to care for him any longer."

Lilina looked sad at the fact that her newest friend was hurt. "He won't get better?" she asked.

Hector shook his head.

"Well," she ventured, cautiously, "I'll take care of him, then."

He ought to have told her no, but he just couldn't. She looked so excited at the idea. "You'll have to ask his owner," he said.

"Okay. I'll give them _the face_."

"That's cheating."

She turned to him, eyes wide and pleading. "Daddy…"

He snorted. "That face doesn't work on Irene, and it doesn't work on me."

She sighed.

"But it might work on Murphy's owner."

Lilina grinned.


	6. As If She Mattered

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** As If She Mattered  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **2,431  
**Notes:** Chapter Six. This chapter is up so quickly because… Well… #blamekender. We made a deal: if she posted her new story, _Priceless _(check it outttt), then I'd post the next chapter to this story. Fair trade and all that. (I feel like I got the better end of the deal.)

* * *

Honesty was difficult for Farina. Late in the evening, she stayed in bed and allowed her thoughts to wander; she had nothing better to do.

When Lord Hector had asked her why she hadn't come to him for help, she'd wanted to be honest—completely honest. But what she'd wanted to say felt so stupid in her head that she couldn't bear the thought of saying it aloud.

"I loved you more than I loved myself. The thought of you seeing me like that would have killed me." It went so much deeper than embarrassment and pride; she'd lost everything. To go to Lord Hector begging for help would have been devastating—proof that she couldn't take care of herself, proof that she wasn't worth anything, _proof_ that she had been just as stupid as that dumb pirate, Dart, full of dreams that remained just that—dreams.

Even eleven years after parting she'd still felt something for Lord Hector. Maybe she still did. She hadn't really tried to get over him, not like she ought to have—not like any normal person would have. But she'd never been normal, had she?

Nobody could ever measure up to Lord Hector; he was too hard to forget.

It didn't help that she'd ended up in Ostia. Even when she'd paid off the debts that she owed, she hadn't left. A part of her had wanted to, had considered it; she could just leave on Murphy, leave and not look back.

But on the way to work one day, there had been a great commotion on the main road, and she'd heard Lord Hector's voice. It was so strong and clear that for a moment, she thought she was dreaming; she could scarcely recall how he sounded while she was awake. He gave a speech but she remembered none of it later, as she was dismissed from her job for being late, "For the third damn time." The first two times had been because she had taken ill several months earlier.

She told herself that it was because she'd lost her job that she was crying, but she knew better. There were other jobs; there would only ever be one Hector. It had felt so good to see him, to hear him…even if he hadn't noticed her there, pressed up against a wall at the back of the crowd, palm over her mouth, trembling.

News of him was addicting. She knew if she left Ostia she'd never hear anything of him again, not unless something really bad happened—not unless he died, or he went to war, and she remembered the prophecy of Armads; he would die in battle. She didn't want to hear about it happening months after the fact. It would hurt too much.

So she'd stayed; he'd never find her, she thought, then, curled up in the corner of Murphy's stall. He'd never look in a dirty hole—he'd never assume that she would have fallen so very far in life.

She didn't think he'd recognize her even if he saw her; she hadn't seen herself in years but she didn't feel the same, anymore.

She could have gone to him. She could have showed up in her filthy clothes with her bedraggled pegasus and demanded a job working for him again—she could have teased him and said she wanted 20,000 gold to do it, too, just for old times' sake.

But she loved him too much to ruin his memory of her, too much to let him see that he had been right not to pick her.

As selfish as it was, she had preferred he think of her and wonder, forever, if he'd done the right thing by walking away.

Not that any of that mattered anymore, she thought, turning under the blankets to face the wall. He knew, now, that he had done the right thing to keep anything from happening, to dance around the fact that there had been something between them starting on the day he'd said, "I'm helping you 'cause I want to, got it?"

Exhaustion had settled so deep in her bones that she'd fainted in the heat, slipping from Murphy's back and to the ground before she was even aware of what had happened.

She had expected to feel terrified when he wrapped his arms around her, but he'd brushed her hair back from her sweaty face and for the first time in many years, she felt safe enough to stop fighting.

His no-nonsense declaration hadn't made her fall in love, but it had helped. She hadn't forgotten how it felt to be lifted by him, so carefully, as if he thought she might break—as if he felt genuine worry for her.

Everyone had always assumed that her personality, her attitude—the one she showed to the world, the one that swore and bragged and didn't care about anyone or anything—indicated how she herself wanted to be treated.

Nobody had ever treated her gently before that moment.

It had been so nice—

_for once_

—to be treated as if she mattered.

Farina fell asleep, slowly, to the memory of that summer day.

* * *

The click of a lock catching woke her up in the morning. Farina had been rising at dawn and going to bed at dusk for years, but something about having a comfortable place to sleep lowered her defenses and let her truly rest.

Still, an odd sound like that was enough to disturb her. Her first thought was that it was Lord Hector, because she had dreamed of him, but she doubted he'd be so bold—or perhaps foolish—as to walk into her room without announcing himself, even if he was the marquess and could do whatever it was he wanted.

She heard someone walk by the door out in the corridor, their shoes clicking angrily against the stone floor.

Then she heard a muffled giggle by her bed.

Now curious more than alarmed, she leaned over the edge of the bed to see a little girl sitting there, facing the door, hands over her mouth.

She wasn't sure what to say. So she said the only thing she could think to. "You're Lord Hector's daughter, aren't you?"

The girl shrieked, jumping to her feet and spinning around so quickly that she fell back to the floor, landing on her bottom. "I didn't know that anybody was in here!" she said. Then the fear fell away, so quickly that for a moment Farina wondered if she'd seen it to begin with.

Yes, this was definitely Lord Hector's daughter.

She took in the girl's face; she looked so much like her father that it made her heart ache.

"_Mother_?" the girl asked, and Farina blinked, startled.

"What?" She was pretty sure she would know if she had any children—especially one fathered by Lord Hector.

"You could almost be my mother!"

"Huh?" Farina was completely lost.

"Ah! My manners!" She curtsied and Farina realized she was wearing a nightgown; was she hiding from her governess? "My name is Lilina. My father is Marquess Ostia."

Time stopped. All Farina could do was blink, rapidly, as if holding back tears. Finally she said, voice wavering just once, "Your name is Lilina?"

"Yep!" She seemed proud of this fact, lifting her chin, grinning.

Farina vowed to speak to Lord Hector about it, later.

Pulling back the blankets, she got out of bed and curtsied; she might have been a number of years older than Lilina, but she was still vastly outranked.

"My name is Farina."

"See?" the girl said, grabbing her hand and dragging her over to the looking glass that faced the wall. "Even our names sound similar!" She pointed at her own nose, and then glanced up at Farina's. "Your nose!"

"I broke it," Farina said, feeling disoriented.

"Me too!" Lilina laughed. "That is _so_ funny," she said. "You know, if your hair was longer, we would look related."

Farina didn't want to think about the only way she could possibly have been related to Lilina—it hurt too much. Still, she wondered how the girl might look if she had been her mother instead of Rosanne of Khathelet.

Probably not half so lovely.

She just smiled, instead. "I don't have any children."

But Lilina was staring at her. "What happened to your hair?"

Farina lifted a hand to the back of her head self-consciously. "Does it look that bad?" Of course it did—she'd just grabbed shears to keep it trimmed, once, and when she'd tried to cut the left side of her hair with her right hand, she'd messed up.

"Yes." If there was any doubt that Lilina was the daughter of Lord Hector, it was gone with her response. She was so straightforward and honest that they were _obviously_ related.

She laughed.

"I could fix it for you."

That was unexpected. "Uh," she said intelligibly. "I don't think that's a—"

"I'm _good_ with scissors," she said, and ran to a table in the corner before she opened a drawer. Inside were rolls of parchment and ink and other things. Lilina pulled out a pair of scissors. "This room is usually empty; this is where I hide from Irene."

Farina wondered to whom that referred, but didn't ask. Probably the pair of angry shoes she'd heard, earlier.

"Well, all right." She supposed it couldn't hurt to let the girl have _some_ fun. How much worse could it get? "If you just want to even it out."

Lilina got her to sit down in the desk chair, and snipped happily away, doing more chatting than cutting; after some time had passed, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Lilina said automatically, and picked right back up where she left off in the conversation, only to pause when the door opened. "Oops," she said.

Farina turned to see Lord Hector standing there, an eyebrow raised. He looked mildly irritated.

"Lilina," he said.

"Sorry, Daddy," she tried.

But he shook his head and hooked his thumb over his shoulder. "Irene is worried sick. She thought you'd been snatched out of your bed in the night."

Lilina had the good grace to look ashamed. "I'm sorry."

"Tell her. And you'll spend an extra hour on your lessons today."

"Yes," she agreed, and put the scissors down on the desk, scampering out of the doorway faster than Farina thought she'd ever seen.

So obedient. _That_ was a surprise; she wondered if Lord Hector had been an obedient child.

"I'm sorry," he told her when his daughter left. The corners of his lips twitched up in amusement. "I should have warned you to lock your door at night. Sometimes she plays in here."

She smiled at him and touched her hair. "She was helping me out," she told him.

He laughed and moved further into the room. "I think she made it worse," he said, reaching out to brush his hands against the ends of her hair.

"I know there's a saying about the sins of the father," she teased, lifting her chin to look straight ahead, away from him, as she twisted her hands together in her lap, "but I don't know if there's one about the sins of the child… I think you should fix it."

"Oh you do, do you?"

This was flirting, she thought. They were flirting. It made her feel giddy. It was almost as if time had never passed between them, for just that one moment.

"Yes," she said. "I do." And she moved one hand to pick up the scissors by the blade, holding them back over her shoulder for him to take.

He did. "I might make it worse."

"I doubt it."

His fingers brushed through her hair a little to straighten it, and then he started cutting. He worked in silence. She was afraid to break it. There was something intimate about such an innocent thing. She let her eyes slip closed.

After a few minutes, he ran his hands through her hair again, short nails scraping across her scalp. He made a few adjustments and, without thinking, blew air across the back of her neck.

It had probably been to blow away loose hair, but she shivered anyway, opening her eyes.

He leaned over her shoulder, fingers brushing against the ends of her short hair. "It looks like it used to," he said, and put his hands on her shoulders.

She twisted her hands together in her lap. "We can't turn back time," she said, quietly. He had already told her he wasn't trying to, but she wasn't sure that she believed him.

"I know." He picked a few loose strands of hair off of the back of her neck.

Closing her eyes again, she leaned back a little; he ran his hands through her hair—she hadn't ever understood why he liked it; she didn't have especially pretty hair, just plain and short. Boring.

"You named her Lilina," she said, almost choking.

"Yes." He stopped playing with her hair and put his hands on the back of her chair, instead.

"Why?"

Hesitating for a moment, he stepped to her side, touching her face and kneeling next to her before he spoke, his voice more emotional than she'd heard it in a long time. "Because I hadn't forgotten."

"But—"

"I know it was stupid," he said, sounding embarrassed. "But I thought…"

She shook her head and leaned forward to wrap her arms around his neck before she managed a wavering, "Thank you."

He held her, perhaps a little too closely, but after a moment, he pulled away, and she noticed a faint blush on his face. She laughed a little to see it, surprised that he was so embarrassed by a hug, but it helped to keep the tears out of her eyes.

He laughed, too. "I'm sorry," he said, looking a little flustered. "You're not dressed."

Looking down, she felt her face warm. She had forgotten she was wearing a nightgown. Crossing her arms over her chest to hide at least a _little_ of her modesty, she apologized, "Sorry."

"Don't be," he said, smiling a little, and then stood. "I'll see you later? Tea?"

"Yeah."

He left and closed the door behind him softly.

And she stared after him, wondering why it was that, despite herself and the years that had passed since she'd last allowed herself to be so close to him, she couldn't help but feel a great many things for Lord Hector of Ostia.


	7. Tiny Fingernails

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Tiny Fingernails  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **3,035  
**Notes:** Chapter Seven, a vaguely disguised info-dump masquerading as sad shit. Warning: While this is rated T at this point, the rating _will_ go up to M within a few chapters _and_ this chapter in particular, while still rated T, contains some darker themes.

* * *

As an adult, Hector had no idea how it was that he'd kept himself in check as a teenager, particularly around Farina. The way she shivered when he blew the loose hair from the back of her neck had made him want her, and he was a grown man, now. He couldn't quite remember how it was he'd been so well behaved around her when he _did_ remember how hard it had been not to think of her all the time—of the lines of her body when she stretched, of the odd way she quirked up one side of her mouth when she was amused, of how good it would feel to have her legs wrapped around his waist.

There had been a sharp sexual tension between them almost from the moment they met; he had been attracted to her attitude more than anything at first, for she wasn't conventionally pretty and they _had_ been in the middle of a brutal fight for survival—as if he'd care how she looked in the middle of a battle!

She'd seemed so sure of herself that he couldn't help but find it a little sexy. He liked confidence in people in general—confidence in both their strengths and weaknesses, but especially their strengths; he liked people who knew themselves well. Women were no different.

But as soon as he hired Farina, she changed. To say she acted frightened of him would be an exaggeration, but he made her nervous. She didn't act that way around anyone else—it was aggravating. She could speak normally to Kent or Dorcas or even Mark, but as soon as she noticed Hector within ten yards of her she'd start to stammer and inch away as if she thought he was planning an attempt on her life.

Or her gold, he realized.

But who cared about gold, anyway? He didn't. He had plenty of it. Still, he figured out why _she_ cared. She never admitted how hard her childhood had been, not in so many words, but he put the pieces together eventually.

Hector wasn't a patient person but he had been patient with her—almost against his will. Earning her trust hadn't been easy, and it took him a long time, but he'd wanted to do it. Lyn had teased him endlessly about it, asking him what his "motives" were, to which he would say that he _had_ no motives; he was just trying to be friendly.

"Ooh," he still remembered her saying, a sly smirk on her face that he decided to wipe off later by winning yet another spar against her. (Their twenty-sixth.) "Friendly, huh? Yeah, _real_ friendly."

"Shut up, Lyn. I haven't even kissed her."

"Yet?" she asked. "Was that sentence supposed to end in _yet_?"

"No," he said, shaking his head and turning away to hide his embarrassment. "Of course not."

But Lyn had always known better. He was terrible at lying, and therefore terrible at acting.

He _had_ wanted to kiss her back then—but he'd been afraid of scaring her, too. What if he ruined everything between them because he was too bold, because he was too much like himself? He couldn't help but notice little things, like how her fingers sometimes still shook when he got too close, how her eyes held just the smallest bit of fear.

He could be patient. Maybe it would be worth it.

Besides, he thought, the last thing he wanted was a scandal. If he kissed her, would that be it, or would he want more? He knew he'd want more—he had already thought a lot about it. He wanted a lot more. It wouldn't be fair to tie her to him on a whim, for a little bit of fun. The risk of pregnancy just wouldn't be worth it.

The day she'd fallen from Murphy's back as he walked toward her to discuss something or another had been the first day he'd felt terrified for another person. He realized, deep down, that this meant he cared about her too much. She didn't even really _trust_ him—how could he feel anything for her beyond an idle sort of curiosity?

Still, seeing her lying there, sweating as if she had a horrible temperature, so weak she could hardly stand on her own—it had been scary.

Her quiet, dizzy murmur of, "All right," had made him feel good. It was the first time he'd seen her muscles visibly relax around him, the first time she'd trusted him enough to let him help.

He brushed back her sweaty hair and took her to Serra as quickly as he could while still being careful; he'd been worried that jostling her might wake her up, and she needed to rest.

His first distinct thought regarding his feelings for Farina had been as he lowered her to a makeshift bed not even an hour later. He was sweating, breathing a little too hard in the heat, and he didn't let go of her right away despite the fact that Serra was hovering, waiting to take care of her.

He thought, looking down at her, _"I want to marry you."_

It was impossible for him to understand why he thought it, then. He admired her perseverance even if she had been foolish, but there was something else there, too. It couldn't have been love, not so early in their relationship.

But from there, things got better. She started to trust him, and Hector ordered Mark to make Farina fight near him. They made a good team, but it was mostly an excuse to keep an eye on her; she had gotten better at not working herself half to death, but sometimes he still saw signs of it.

* * *

"Farina," he said, smiling to see her.

She gave him an odd look and took a seat near him in the sunroom. Once she was seated, she smiled back, tilting her head slightly to the side. "Lord Hector. She looks so much like you, you know."

"Lilina?" he asked. "Everyone says that."

"It's true."

He ran his hands through his hair. "Are you upset about her name?"

Farina looked startled. "Why would I be?" she asked.

"Because you wanted to use it."

She shrugged, looking a little hurt. "It's not like I'll ever get the chance."

Her words made his chest ache far deeper than he thought they ought to. "Still," he pressed, "are you upset about it?"

She looked thoughtful for a moment, but then she shook her head. "No," she said, sounding sincere. "I'm glad someone got to use it, though."

"It's a pretty name," he told her, and took a sip of the tea. _Elimine_, he hated tea. "When I saw her," he murmured, "all wrinkly and pink, I thought of you and I couldn't help but wonder, _what if_—" He barely stopped himself in time. It had hurt to see Rosanne holding Lilina to her breast; it ought not to have, but it had.

It was supposed to be Farina there, instead. Once upon a time he had imagined that it would be. She'd ignore the newborn latching onto her nipple, and she'd say something like, "Don't be an idiot, Hector, I don't _need_ any damn rest. It was just _childbirth_."

Farina looked down at the table.

"I remembered what you said," he told her. "I thought it was such a fitting name."

"Thanks," she said after a moment, and glanced back up at him. He knew he wasn't imagining the tears in her eyes. "It really fits her very well."

He pushed back the urge to stand, to take the step or two over to her, to press her against him.

It wouldn't help.

It wouldn't change anything.

* * *

The day before news of Uther's death reached them was the day Farina admitted her greatest secret.

Weeks earlier, she had admitted something else to him: before she had left home, several years previous, she'd done a minor job for someone; a minor noble. They had forced her to have sex with them. To just lie there and take it like she owed her body to another human being.

Held her down, she told him. He had been too scared to ask for any more information, certain that she would not tell him, and certain, too, that the experience had been painful by every definition.

"I took the money anyway," she admitted, refusing to look at him.

He hadn't known what to say to that, but he also thought that had been the end of it—as bad as it had gotten for her. It certainly explained why she had been so wary of him to begin with—why she'd been suspicious that he was going to take the money back. Why she acted so nervous all of the time, particularly around him.

As if she thought he would hurt her sooner or later.

But that night, away from the others, under a new moon, pressed against his side to hide her face, she told him the rest.

She started her story with a quiet, murmured question: "Remember when I told you about what happened a long time ago?"

"It wasn't that long ago that it happened to you," he told her. "A few years isn't a long time." He had been so naïve, then, to think that a few years could feel like no time at all.

She ignored him, fingers playing with the hem of her skirt. He could only just see it in the darkness, the black of her dress against her skin.

"That wasn't the whole story."

He stiffened. "Oh?"

"I had a miscarriage three months later." She hurried on before he could even think to process her words. "Fiora's debt… That's how she got it. I was struggling out there during practice—couldn't stay seated in the wind."

Her words started to sound choked.

"She saw me go down—suffered breach of contract for trying to find me. I was too young to understand what was happening, you know. I hadn't even realized I was pregnant."

Later he would ask more questions about it. He found out that Farina had been a mess when Fiora found her, had begged her sister for help, terrified; she'd hurt herself badly in the fall and on top of that—or because of it—her body had begun to terminate the pregnancy.

"It was a girl," she'd said, still sounding calm. "Of course she was dead…only three months…" Then her voice broke, and she began to cry, talking about how her baby had had little fingers and toes and, "for Elimine's sake, _tiny fingernails_."

"_God_, Farina," was the only thing he could think to say.

"Fiora took her away…said nobody could know about it. I begged her to bring her back; I didn't even know I'd wanted her until I saw her. She said I was half out of my mind and took me home."

"She didn't call for any medical help?" he asked, horrified.

"After we got home," she said, "she went and found Old Gran—she'd never judge. She'd keep quiet. Gran wasn't a very skilled healer and the job she did was just a…temporary fix. When the pain got so bad I couldn't stand it anymore, I used the money I had—" he assumed she meant the money she'd taken from the employer who had raped her, "—and went to a professional. They told me the damage I took in the fall from Murphy had been so badly healed I'd never have another baby."

Hector didn't cry, but he thought maybe he wanted to.

"You can't have children?" he asked her, touching her hair.

He could feel her nod next to him, and for once he was glad for the new moon; he knew if he saw her face it would break his heart.

"I'm sorry," he offered, but knew it was lame.

When he asked Fiora about it, behind his tent long after Farina had fallen asleep, she obliged his questions, though she hesitated first. "The blood," she murmured. "There was a lot of blood. She must have hit the trees a few times before the ground." Her eyes had been full of emotion, which surprised him. "You must understand," she told him, earnestly, "if anyone knew…she would have been dismissed; it happens, though, to a lot of people. It's just…nobody ever talks about it, or wants to admit it."

"Before they told me," Farina admitted, "that it would be impossible, I thought maybe I'd have another girl—name her Lilina, after my mother. She passed away when I was about ten."

"That's a pretty name."

"She was amazing." Farina told him a little about her mother—strong, independent, kind. It was easy to see why she wanted to name a child after her.

But he didn't know what to say. Farina missed her mother and wanted to name a baby after her; she had had a baby but lost it, and couldn't ever have another. Words didn't seem appropriate. He'd never been good with words, anyway.

"Sorry," she said, sighing. "I know you don't care. Thanks for listening."

"I do care," he told her, and gathered her up so that he could hold her for a while.

But truthfully, he didn't care.

He cared about _her_, but he knew she had told him the story for a reason. They'd tiptoed and danced around the line between flirting and "something more" over the past couple of months and he thought that maybe she was trying to dissuade him from pursuing her on an intimate level.

Well, it was too late, he thought. He wasn't stupid.

He was in love.

And he didn't care that she couldn't have children. The only reason he would want a child would be to have a son, and that would only be so that his son could be better than Eliwood's at everything; it was a terrible reason to want to bring a child into the world.

Suddenly, he wanted to have a daughter—he wanted Farina to be able to have a girl, he wanted to be the father, he wanted to see her holding a wrinkly pinkish looking baby to her breast, and he wanted to see her cry because she was so happy.

He rocked her back and forth a little at the thought—because it would never happen, and for that, he was truly sorry.

But he was the younger brother—he could marry whomever he wanted. Surely, Uther would marry soon, and then his children would inherit everything. Nobody would care if Hector chose to marry Farina.

"Hey," he said, wanting to tell her, but she didn't respond. She'd fallen asleep. He pressed a kiss to her hair.

On the way back to the encampment, he passed Lyn, who raised an eyebrow at the woman he held in his arms, and he passed Matthew, too.

He didn't even let Matthew speak.

"I don't give a shit what you think," he told him, and turned into the tent that Farina shared with her younger sister.

Florina glanced up, surprised. "Lord Hector," she'd said, smiling when she noticed he held Farina.

"Hey," he said. "Your sister fell asleep on me." But he was smiling.

So Florina laughed. "W-Well, she doesn't sleep enough."

"I know," he told her, and tucked Farina in, trying very hard not to disturb her. In the half-lit tent he could see that her face was splotchy, but she looked peaceful enough.

He smoothed back her hair and kissed her forehead, then turned to Florina. "Don't let her do anything stupid," he said.

She nodded.

After he left, he stayed awake for a long time, just staring at nothing. Had she mentioned the rape and the miscarriage because she didn't _want_ him to pursue her, or because she was just trying to be honest with him?

He thought it must be the latter—or maybe a combination of both of them. She did so much bragging, sometimes, that he felt she was probably compensating for the fact that she didn't feel very good about herself all of the time. He wasn't happy about the horrible, cruel things that had happened to Farina because he cared about her so very much—in fact, these things made him angry, that someone could treat her that way—but he wouldn't push her away because she wasn't a virgin, and he didn't care that she couldn't give him heirs.

He could just spoil the hell out of Uther's kids, couldn't he?

The thought made him grin. That would probably be a lot more fun than having children of his own, anyway.

He decided, then, quite firmly, that he _would_ marry her. As soon as possible, even.

The next day, before he had managed to sort out his thoughts to propose to her the way she deserved to be proposed to, he learned of Uther's death.

And his world crumbled around him.

* * *

"Lord Hector?"

He shook his head to clear it. "Sorry," he apologized, and then sighed. "We were close friends, once," he told her, forcing himself not to say that he had loved her more than words, back then. "Won't you call me by my name?"

"If you insist, Hector." But she smiled.

He still couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling in his gut.

He remembered looking at Lilina, holding her. It was his job to pick a name for his own children. He just saw his daughter and believed—

_for a moment_

—that when he looked down he would see Farina lying there, her skin damp with sweat, her short hair a mess, her eyes shining with pride or tears or _both_…

But Rosanne had given him a small, tired smile, said, "Lilina? An odd name, but it is pretty," and he'd realized that he'd said it aloud.

He didn't regret it.

"Farina," he said, suddenly, standing. He needed some air. He felt stifled. Restless. And he wasn't sure that he could be trusted not to kiss her. He held out his arm for her. "It's nice outside; let's go for a walk."


	8. You're Still You

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** You're Still You  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **1,846  
**Notes:** Chapter Eight. Shorter than the previous ones, but at least Hector and Farina start to move forward together a bit. :)

* * *

Telling Hector the truth had been difficult. The first time she tried to tell him, she could only manage the first part of the story, which started with a rape and ended with her taking all the money that had been promised her from the start—money she'd had to earn in her employer's bed.

She hadn't been able to be completely truthful about it, because it was so humiliating. It was one thing to admit a vague sort of weakness, but something else entirely to say exactly what had happened. How could she look at him and say that she'd been weak—that she'd _allowed_ herself, a trained mercenary, to be overpowered by a single person?

She had _meant_ to tell him the whole truth.

But in that moment, she'd liked his arm around her too much to tell him the rest of the story—that it hadn't been just a rape. She'd been kept in that room for two days. Two long, hazy, awful days. She lost her ability to think of Bern without feeling ill, after that.

He would be ashamed to associate with her if he knew the full extent of it, she thought, or else it would spark his temper, so she had only ever informed him of the basics. It had been hard enough to live through—she honestly didn't want to have to think about it again, especially not in front of Lord Hector. They were just details, anyway. In the end, it had still been sex, and it had been against her will.

She wasn't sure if she had told him because she wanted to explain her behavior to him, or if she just wanted someone to confide in, or if she hoped to warn him that she was not worth his time or attention. Maybe all three.

He'd treated her so gently, but he'd done it when he hadn't known her. Would he still care if he knew that she was a mercenary who couldn't even manage to fight to save her own honor? Would he still care if he knew that she could scarcely even be considered a woman because she she'd never be of any use as one?

She was tired of hiding and she wanted him to care about her—but only if he _knew_ things about her that she hadn't told anyone else. If he changed his mind, at least she would know that she had been honest with him, hadn't let him think he knew her when he didn't.

It had taken weeks to work up the courage to tell him the last secret she really had—the last important one, anyway: she couldn't have children. The darkness that new moon night had been a godsend—she didn't think she'd have managed to blurt it out if she could see the look on his face while she spoke.

He still treated her like a friend, after he'd found out.

But the flirting slowed and then stopped.

She could blame it on the fact that news of Uther's death had reached them, and Lord Hector had been forced to grow up quite suddenly; he couldn't play around with a mercenary any longer, not when he'd need to run a country. It didn't matter how he felt; he'd have to marry well and his wife would have to give him children.

She could do neither for him, even if he had been interested at one time.

It really was for the best. She had done the right thing in telling him—in warning him that she was not good enough to be considered as anything more than a friend, and even then…he had to be careful about who he associated with, as marquess.

Despite all that, she still wanted him.

She still loved him.

But she had to put her mind over her heart; he was way too good for her; he deserved so much better, and he could _get_ someone better, too, if she put a stop to their silly dance of flirting but never saying or doing anything, because eventually, she thought, something would come of it. It would be better to just stop it altogether.

It had worked, though, and that hurt more than anything—that stepping back and telling him the truth about herself had been enough to push him away. That he had _let_ her push him away so easily.

Was it a sense of duty to Ostia that had forced him to leave her? Or all along, had he merely wanted to sleep with her only to determine after the truth came out that she wasn't even good enough for that?

She had never gotten an answer to those questions, because she had been too afraid to ask, terrified of the answers. As soon as Fargus's ship docked in Badon, she'd fled to Ilia, only barely wishing Lord Hector goodbye.

She'd wanted to part on good terms, at least. She wasn't mad at him—only hurt. It wasn't his fault or hers, anyway. It was just circumstance, as cruel a taskmaster as any other.

* * *

Her fingers left Hector's arm as they reached the back of the garden; an old swing hung from a wide, low maple tree branch, and she moved right for it, pleased.

Carefully, she half-sat on the wide bench, then scooted all the way to one side. She tested her weight on it and then sank down, sighing a little as the ropes creaked from disuse. She smiled at Hector a little. "I think we should talk," she told him. Neither of them had said a damned thing since they'd left his rooms.

He raked his hair back, returning her smile but looking confused. "About what?"

"Anything," she said, leaning back on her toes to start the swing moving. "Small things, medium things—big, important things. Do you want me to start?"

The confusion didn't leave his face. "All right."

It would be best to start with something small. "You've put on weight."

He laughed, but crossed his arms over his chest. Was he self-conscious about that? "Well, you've _lost_ weight," he said. "So we're even."

"Fair enough." She swung for a bit longer before she said, "Your turn."

"I don't know what to say," he admitted, taking a step closer to grab one of the ropes, bringing her swing to a crooked, wild halt.

She looked up at him and shrugged, heart fluttering a little in her chest. "Ask me a dumb question," she said. "Anything at all."

"You never married," he said after a moment. "Why not?"

She hated that he was standing so close—she had to tilt her neck back to look up at him. At least he was tall enough to block out the sun.

There were a million answers she could give to his question. Nobody would want her if they knew about her past, and why should she have to marry someone she couldn't confide in? Trust?

But instead she told him, frankly, "I never found anybody good enough."

Not that she had been looking.

He gave a noncommittal hum in response, but stepped to the side. "No one?"

"Well," she admitted, feeling shy and silly, "there was _one_, once. A long time ago. It wasn't meant to be."

"Why not?"

She couldn't tell if he understood what she was talking about or not. "I wasn't good enough for him," she said, but found that it was impossible to even force a smile onto her face to say it. For some reason, fourteen years hadn't been enough to heal that heartache.

He sighed and sat down next to her on the swing, ignoring the way the ropes creaked loudly at his added weight. "That's absurd," he said. "I never thought that."

So he _did_ know what she was talking about.

"Hector," she began, turning a little on the swing, knees lifted just slightly, but before she could say more, the rope on his side of the swing snapped, dumping him onto the ground. She fell half on top of him, but laughed to see the expression on his face as she shifted to sit on the ground, facing him.

"You're right," he said, sounding astonished. "I _did_ put on weight."

She laughed harder.

"Hey!" he protested, turning to her, his fingers closing around her arm. "It's not _that_ funny!"

She tried to stop, but only managed to smother it, her lips twitching upward involuntarily. "I thought it was," she teased, and meant to say more, but something about the way he was looking at her stopped her.

"Farina," he breathed, and she couldn't tell if he was asking her a question or if he'd just wanted to say her name because he liked the sound of it.

"Yeah?" she started to ask, but his lips against hers cut her off.

It was a soft, lingering, gentle sort of kiss. Her heart fluttered anxiously.

"Farina," he said again when he pulled away, his voice stronger, but when she opened her eyes, she saw that his were closed as he touched her face, rubbing his thumb across the skin near the corner of her mouth. "I love you."

She almost choked. "Don't say that," she told him, and he opened his eyes but didn't move. "You don't mean it."

"You still don't trust me?" he asked. "After all these years?"

"It's not that." She sighed, her voice trembling. "You don't know me anymore, Hector. How can you say you love someone you don't even know? You might as well be saying you love a stranger."

He pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her and drew her in like he had so many years ago. He still smelled like leather and sun-warmed skin. "People might change," he said, "but I'm still me. You're still you. Maybe we look a little different but I know I haven't changed that much. I don't think you have, either."

She didn't know what to say to that. "Yeah," she finally admitted. "You're right."

"See?" he asked, and when he let her go, he tucked her hair behind her ear and she noticed he was smiling, although his expression was a little sad. "Let's stop dancing around everything in the past and just…talk about it. What do you think?"

She couldn't remember what it was she'd been so afraid of. Obviously he'd had feelings for her in the past. Maybe he still did.

Nervous but relieved at the chance to say everything she'd never said aloud, she looked right at him. "I loved you during the war."

For a moment, she thought he might kiss her again; he certainly looked as if he wanted to. But then he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her again, pulling her close against him. They stayed like that for a long time, and she relaxed, listening to the sounds of his stammering heartbeat and his raspy breathing.

She was afraid to say anything at all; he sounded as if he might cry if she did.


	9. Too Much of a Coward

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Too Much of a Coward  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **2,402  
**Notes:** Chapter Nine. Finally a step forward for Hector and Farina. The rating is moving up to M now because of the things they discuss in this chapter. I swear I am not making this story dark to grab people via shock factor—it's just how things happened in this particular story.

* * *

She had loved him. It felt so good to finally hear but her words brought with them a veritable tidal wave of regret.

He'd been right all along, then.

What if he'd known, sooner? Would he have fought to keep her? Hector of Ostia never backed down from a fight, but would he have bothered to try, knowing his chances? Maybe if he'd known that Eliwood would fight for Ninian… Maybe then…

But Eliwood hadn't known if Ninian could have children or not. Humans and dragons could breed—as evidenced by Nils and Ninian's existence—but could their offspring? Eliwood had assumed there was a chance, maybe even a good one.

But Farina was completely barren. She'd told him so, herself. Even if he could lie his way into a marriage with her, if he could get it approved—or if he'd just married her on the way _back_ to Ostia to be spiteful—he knew he'd be forced into a divorce sooner or later.

Deep down, he had known she loved him, but it hadn't changed anything. He had distanced himself from her. He had stopped flirting—saying silly things, touching her hair, her shoulder, the small of her back.

And then, the day Fargus had pulled them safely into Badon's port, Farina had left for good.

It was all for the best, he remembered thinking, but he hadn't felt that way.

When he pulled away from Farina by the garden swing, releasing her from his tight hold, he sighed. "I knew you did," he admitted. It hurt to say—he felt like such a bad person.

"Like I said," she told him, softly, "it wasn't meant to be."

"I was going to ask you to marry me." He hadn't meant to say it so abruptly, but it was too late to take it back, and he was only ashamed of it because in the end, he'd been too much of a coward to ask. "The night that you told me you couldn't have kids. I decided that I didn't care about having kids. I thought I could just leave it all up to Uther."

"But then…" she began, but didn't finish.

He nodded. "Yeah, not even twelve hours later I found out he had died."

"I understand."

"No," he said. "I don't think that you do. Or did. I should have explained myself. My feelings hadn't changed at all. I just…"

"You wanted to do the responsible thing, and that was not me."

He resisted the urge to make a joke about her wording but chose to comment on it, anyway, but not in jest. "I still wanted you," he said, seriously. "I just—"

"I know what you mean," she said, a small smile quirking up the corner of her mouth. "I didn't expect anything from you; it wasn't like you'd ever said you loved me."

_But I kept hinting at it_, he thought to himself, but said, "That doesn't mean that it didn't hurt."

She didn't say anything for a long moment. "It did hurt," she finally admitted, "and I told myself that it was dumb for me to feel hurt when it wasn't like you owed me anything." She started to twist her hands in her lap—he was starting to recognize the action as a sign of nervousness.

"I think I owed us both more than that."

"I don't know." She looked away from him. "I told you all of those things about myself," she said. "None of them were pleasant. I didn't blame you for staying away."

"You couldn't _help_ those things," he insisted, feeling anger swell up in his throat. Was she still feeling worthless because of the way someone had treated her so long ago? He hated the thought. "They weren't your fault."

"I know that."

"Do you?" he asked. "You know that I didn't stay away from you because you told me about them, right?"

She flinched a little. "Yes you did," she said after a moment, and took a deep breath. "Don't lie to me; don't you think I've been lied to enough in my life?"

He paused. "You're right," he admitted. "And yes, you have been. I'm sorry. I just—I meant that those incidents didn't change how I felt about you."

"But they were enough to stop you."

"I am not Eliwood," he said, then, feeling ashamed. "He always thought love could conquer all, and when Ninian died, at first he thought that he had been wrong, but in the end, you see, he had been right. She returned to him, and he was not afraid to fight for her, but I—"

"Don't be stupid," she told him, her voice flat. "There was always a huge difference between Ninian and myself."

"Yeah," he said. "You've always been prettier."

"Now I know that's not true," she sighed, but before he could argue with her about it, she continued speaking. "She was quiet and graceful, and even if she was different-looking, you can't deny that she had an otherworldly beauty about her. She'd have no trouble being approved by any kind of panel or however you do aristocratic marriages in Lycia."

"Yes, but—"

"I'm just saying," she told him, "that even if you hadn't known those things about me, you would have known, at the very least, that a marriage would never be approved."

"Would you have accepted, if I had asked?" He'd always wondered.

"No." She looked so sad about it that it made him feel awful. "I would have wanted to, of course, but I wouldn't have accepted. I'm not so cruel."

"Not so cruel as to what?" he asked. "To leave me to marry someone I didn't even know?"

"Lady Rosanne gave you an heir," she pointed out. "I could never do that."

"I know, but I…"

He didn't know anymore. What had he wanted, back then? To marry her. To be allowed to live his own life. To love someone and not have to worry about whether or not they were "approved" by a group of snobby rich bastards. The only person who ought to have cared whom it was he married was _him_. He was the one who would have to live with them, who would have to fuck them or make love to them or just have sex with them like it was some kind of _job_—it should have only been _his_ business.

But he'd been too weak to take that stance, too afraid to say that he knew what he wanted. Not strong enough to pick Farina even though he'd thought of nothing else for a long time.

"You shouldn't worry so much about it," she said. "It was for the best."

"Was it?" He wasn't so sure. He hadn't _imagined_ that there had been something between them, something _good_, something that could have been a hell of a lot _more_ than whatever it was they'd had. "I could have taken care of you."

"I didn't need that," she said.

He wanted to argue with her about it. If she didn't need taken care of, what was she doing sleeping in Murphy's stall with him, wearing filthy clothes and looking twenty pounds underweight? "What _did_ you need?" he asked, instead.

She seemed taken aback by his question. "I don't know," she answered after a while. "I guess I just wanted—or needed—someone to care despite knowing everything that had happened to me."

"And now?" he prodded.

"I don't think that's changed, really."

"I still care."

"But you don't know everything about me."

"I know enough."

"Do you?" she asked, suddenly looking annoyed. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "I only told you the basics. And it's been fourteen years since then."

He leaned forward, touched her arm. "Well, then," he said, "tell me."

Boldly, she stared at him. "Okay. When I told you that I was forced to have sex with my employer as a kid, I left out all the details."

He wasn't sure that he wanted to hear anything else, but he didn't interrupt. Maybe she needed to talk to someone about it—he doubted she'd ever told anyone the whole truth.

To her credit, her expression remained hard—she didn't cry, or even _look_ sad, though he knew she had to be feeling something.

"It didn't happen just once. He held me there for two days, tied me to the bed so that I couldn't get away because I tried to fight back. Almost broke my jaw, and then he shoved his dick in my mouth and—" her voice cracked, just once, but she ploughed through and it didn't break again, "—told me to suck on it 'cause that'd be all the food I'd get until he was done with me."

If she had told him about it fourteen years ago, he'd have probably demanded to know the guy's name so that he could have killed him himself. And he would have done it, too—might even have sent Matthew after him, though he'd want the satisfaction of watching such a disgusting person die.

But he just felt sick; any desire he might have ever had to have his dick in her mouth vanished. He could never ask anything like that of her after what had happened to her, even if it had been more than a decade. "Farina," he said, after a long moment of silence. "_God_, I just—I'm…"

"Forget about it," she said, resting her chin on her folded knees. "It happened a long time ago; it's okay."

"No it's not!" He still had the capacity to get angry about things, and her attitude was something that stirred his blood in all the wrong ways. "It's not okay—nothing about that is okay!"

"I didn't mean that I thought it was all right that it happened," she said, and he had to admire her ability to not snap back at him. Once upon a time, she would have. "I meant that it's so far in the past now that it shouldn't affect me anymore."

"Why didn't you tell me this, sooner?"

"Why would I?" she asked. "So that you could get angry about it? So that you could think less of me? It was hard enough back then to admit that I'd been forced to have sex with someone. It was hard to say it to _you_, because you were the one who'd paid me and you paid 20,000 gold to a mercenary who, once upon a time, couldn't even protect herself."

"I wouldn't have thought less of you."

"You would have tried to kill him? Find him and kill him?"

"Yes," he admitted. "Yes I would have. And I would have enjoyed it, too."

"There's a little more to that story," she said, then, looking uncomfortable.

_Elimine_, he thought. _How much worse can it get? _For her—why had she had to suffer so much? He thought it had been hard on him to be without her, but if she had loved him as much as she'd said she had, back then, then it must have been worse for her, to know what had happened to her in her line of work, to know that she had meant something to someone, once, and to then have to return to it and just hope and pray nothing bad ever happened to her again.

But what she said surprised him.

"I guess he got bored of me after a couple of days. He let me go. Untied me. Took me a few hours to get to my feet, though."

He felt even sicker. It was hard to imagine her as she was now being treated so badly, but as a young girl? It wasn't hard to believe that someone had done it to her—he doubted anything would truly surprise him anymore—but all Hector could think about was how evil a person would have to be to do it. How badly had he beaten her if she couldn't even move? He'd probably been rough enough to tear her—maybe more than once.

Even if it _had_ happened something like eighteen years ago, it was still affecting her, still weighing on her mind. And nothing he could ever do would undo it, would fix it, would erase it from her memory.

"I went and found him," she continued. "Took me a while but he was sleeping in his own bed—just…sleeping. Looked harmless, even. He had a sword on the wall. I took it down, was gonna kill him. But in the end I couldn't."

"Why not? He deserved to die for what he did to you."

She shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "I just couldn't."

He couldn't understand that. He would have killed the man. Would have killed him a hundred times over if he could have. Would maybe have enjoyed stabbing him over and over again. But maybe _that_ was why Farina hadn't been able to do it. Maybe the desire to kill someone, to get revenge, had been too much for her after everything she'd already been through.

Maybe she'd thought it wouldn't make her any better than her former employer.

"I wish I would have known, back then," he said. He'd have given anything to be trusted enough to be told all of that, even if it would have hurt to hear, even if he'd have been furious to know it had happened to her.

"Would that have changed anything?"

He had to think about that. "I don't know," he admitted. "Still, something like that would not change my opinion of you at all. I still care."

"But you still don't know everything that's happened," she pointed out.

"You're right. So tell me more." He hoped that there had been nothing _worse_ in her life. Sleeping in a horse stall was way better than being held somewhere, tied to a bed for some bastard's sick pleasure.

"No way," she said, shaking her head. "It's your turn, now."

He grinned, but rolled his eyes. "Well, what do you want to know about?"

"Everything. From the beginning."

"Well," he teased, "I was born in the dead of winter, and—"

She shoved him hard, but she looked amused. "I meant after the war," she said. "Or whatever."

He took a deep breath.


	10. It Was For the Best

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** It Was For the Best  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **1776  
**Notes:** Chapter Ten. Things start looking up! Updates might get slower after this, but I do have the rest of the story mapped out. :)

* * *

Farina was glad that she had been able to turn the conversation over to Hector. Even though she had been bold enough to share things with him that she had been too scared to share years ago, she still did not get much enjoyment out of talking about herself, and bringing up memories of her past that she didn't want to recall was difficult.

They were fact, though. They had happened. And nothing would change that, ever.

Still, he wanted her to believe he cared, and the only way she would really believe it would be if he knew the worst things about her and still found that he cared, anyway.

Hector's deep breath ended with a thoughtful little hum. "I already told you that I was going to ask you to marry me before I learned of Uther's death," he said. "I thought about asking anyway, but I didn't think it was fair to either of us to ask, knowing what I did."

"About how I can't have children?" she asked.

"Yeah. I mean, we could have gotten married anyway, right? Could have had someone marry us on the way back from the Dread Isle; we could even have had someone in Ostia marry us before we left for the Isle." He ran his hand back through his hair—such an old habit; it seemed he hadn't broken it. "But I wasn't sure that you cared about me enough to marry me, and anyway, you'd just told me that you couldn't have children. It didn't matter that _I_ didn't care about that, because the Lycian League would care plenty for both of us."

She smiled a little, but it was bitter. "You don't think not getting married was for the best?" she asked.

"I don't know," he answered, very sincerely. The faint lines around his mouth deepened as he frowned. "Say we had gotten married—maybe that monk could have even done that for us. How long would it have taken the League before they ordered a divorce because you couldn't produce children? And what would Ostia have thought of me if they realized that I had known all along that you were barren?"

She hated that word: barren. Hated it—probably because it hurt so much.

"Probably just a few years," she said. "Five or six at the most."

"Yeah," he said. "Especially with all male heirs from my family gone—I had to have kids. At least one. I'm supposed to die in a battle or something," he said. "As marquess that means I'm supposed to die at war; I haven't died yet, but how long do I have? Things are getting tense in Bern, you know; I'm starting to think that we ought to have let those Black Fang kids just kill Prince Zephiel…"

He continued on for a while, his voice sounding more and more irate as he talked. Finally, she interrupted with a touch to his cheek. "Hector," she said, "I know why you didn't ask me to marry you. I understand. Like I said…it was probably for the best."

"Is it better to have happiness and lose it?" he asked her. "Or is it better to just never have it at all?"

"I had it," she said, "with you. It wasn't perfect and it was in the middle of a war, but it meant something to me."

"Me, too," he sighed, "but it could have been so much more."

"So what happened after the war?" she asked.

"You left," he said, and gave her a long look of—maybe it was—longing.

Or regret. That he had let her go? She wasn't sure.

"I'm sorry," was all she could say to that. It had to have hurt him deeply for her to leave so suddenly, with hardly a word.

She remembered it clearly. As she'd walked Murphy off the ship, she'd seen Lord Hector standing there, the salty air tousling his hair, his skin a little reddened from the sun and a few healing wounds across his neck and side and one of his arms. She had been able to see the bandages through the holes in his clothes.

He'd looked so handsome, standing there, that she hadn't wanted to disturb him, hadn't wanted to pull him away from his conversation with Lord Eliwood and Ninian.

"Hey," she'd said anyway, feeling awkward. When he'd stepped away from them, she'd swung herself into Murphy's saddle; it helped her feel equal to his height. She could have kissed him, and she wanted to, but that was a silly dream and it wasn't fair to end it like that, so she hadn't. Instead, she'd given him a short, gentle hug, afraid to hurt him even if he'd pretend it didn't hurt at all. She'd said, "I'm leaving, Lord Hector; maybe I'll see you again someday."

And then she'd left. She hadn't looked back; she didn't dare, not when she was crying like a fool.

"It's okay," he said in response to her apology. "You're probably right; it was for the best. Still, I went back to Ostia, and one day I got a letter from one of your sisters."

"Really?" She couldn't remember Fiora or Florina writing him a letter, but maybe it had been kept secret from her; she _had_ been away from home a lot.

"Yeah. It had news of Ilia, but it also mentioned you in there—just one or two lines. It said you were doing well for yourself. I thought to myself that I ought to send for you—ought to make up some kind of bullshit job for you to do. Maybe I'd say I needed you to carry invitations to my wedding or something. I thought about it for weeks."

She didn't know what to say to that. So she said nothing at all for a long moment. "I would have come," she finally told him.

"I know. I thought I'd been such a fool to let you go in Badon, that maybe if I hadn't stopped showing you I'd cared, maybe you would have come back to Ostia with me to begin with."

"Maybe." She didn't know the answer to that; she never would.

He flushed red, and ran his hand through his hair again, tugging on the ends of it as if he were frustrated as well as embarrassed. "I thought if you were here, we could keep things going between us. I—I'm ashamed to say that I considered it even after I was married to Rosanne. You must understand…that we did not love one another."

"I know," she told him. "Isn't it normal for people of your station to have an affair or two or ten?"

She was only half-teasing. It was pretty normal.

"I always thought the idea was disgusting," he said. "But I guess I always thought, growing up, that I could marry whomever I wanted because only Uther's kids would matter. Nobody would have cared if I'd moved off somewhere else and made my living as a mercenary or a blacksmith or whatever."

"But as the marquess…"

He sighed. "Then kids mattered. And marrying someone "proper" mattered. So I decided to marry Rosanne. She wasn't a terrible woman or an awful wife or anything, but having to have sex with someone who doesn't really like you much is awful."

She could understand that, probably more than she wanted to. Things were different for her, but she thought maybe for Hector they had been worse. He was not a bad guy—really kindhearted despite his brusqueness—and for him to have to try, regularly, for children with a woman who didn't want him on top of her had to be just…a terrible experience.

"Did she cry?" she found herself asking before she could help it.

He looked startled. "The first time," he admitted. "She cried a little. I tried to make it good for her but I think that made it worse. Told me she just wanted to get it over with so that she could be alone."

"That must have hurt." It took her a moment to realize she'd said it aloud, and when she did, she shifted her gaze to him.

He looked uncomfortable. "Yes," he admitted after a long pause, "it did. So I thought…maybe I ought to invite you to Ostia."

"Did you think I would sleep with you?" she asked.

He gave a laugh that sounded just a little nervous. "I wasn't sure," he said, "but I thought, at the time, that I might like to find out."

She smiled at him and leaned forward to touch his face. He didn't flinch; he just watched her, carefully, eyes a little tired from too much stress in his relatively young life.

She couldn't say whether or not she would have slept with him. Having an affair wasn't something she had ever wanted to do, but she had never fancied that she would love someone of Hector's station; she thought that maybe, if she had known he wanted to sleep with her, she might have come to him, eased his loneliness a little bit with her body if that's what it took to help.

He had always managed to make her feel as if he cared. It would have been nice to feel that way with him again, even if he wore a wedding band whose matching partner she did not possess.

It was a wicked thought, though. Would Rosanne have been pleased to see Hector's needs taken care of by another woman so that she did not have to? Would she have been relieved that there would never be any bastard children to compete with her daughter for the throne?

She supposed that she would never know. She was glad she had never been asked, because she didn't think that she could have denied him something like that.

"So why didn't you ask?" she finally managed to say.

"This is going to sound ridiculous," he said, and touched her hair, tucking a few loose strands of it behind her ear, "but…the thought of keeping you a secret, as if I were ashamed to love you… I couldn't live with that."

She found herself blinking rapidly, trying to push back tears as they welled up in her eyes. "Hector," she whispered, sounding awed, "I believe you now—I believe that you cared, and that you still do." Nobody could say something so sincere and not mean it with everything they were.

He smiled, though it was a little wobbly, and touched her face, rubbing his thumb across her cheek. "And what about you?" he asked.

"I never stopped," she said, and leaned forward to press her lips against his.


	11. Interlude: Part I

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Interlude: Part I  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **3,641**  
Notes: **This chapter is an interlude, so enjoy some silly, cute scenes from fourteen years ago. :) Unbeta'd so please let me know if you notice any mistakes.

* * *

Scene 01—Realization

When Hector had confronted Farina about her pay, he had assumed that her stammering was indicative of a terrible liar and nothing more. After that, he did not bring up her pay again, but when he approached her to say anything, even something as simple as asking her how she was doing, she'd do it again. Not as badly as the first time, certainly, but still. And, he realized, her fingers shook, trembled just the slightest bit before she would clench her hands or her weapon or even the hem of her skirt to hide it.

Obviously she was hiding it. Or trying to. But she was failing quite miserably at it.

He wasn't used to his _allies_ being afraid of him. The enemy? They ought to be—he would destroy them with little more than a flick of his wrist. But his own allies? No way. That wasn't normal.

It was weird. And so were her accusations, aimed right at him: that he was trying to take away the money he'd already paid her, that he was trying to trick her, that he thought of her as an object. It was a lot of money, yes, and he and Mark had been foolish to hand it over to her without negotiation, but they had done it. What was done was done. It would be cruel to take it away now. He had no intention of tricking her—in fact, he had no idea at all what she was even talking about regarding that particular accusation. And finally, he did _not_ view her as an object; he'd only tried to keep her from running away, and he'd been too rough with her; she'd fallen right on top of him and he'd _tried_ to catch her, but they'd both fallen, and _maybe_ his hand had been in an awkward place when they'd landed.

Okay, his hand had been curled around the back of her thigh, exactly where it should _not_ have been.

But it wasn't like he'd reacted to it! He was in too much pain, and way too surprised to think about anything but the fact that she was accusing him of trying to advance on her.

He'd _wanted_ to say that if he _was_ advancing on her, she'd be too busy kissing him to _talk_ about it, but a part of him realized that saying it would only make things a lot worse…so he had tried to apologize…which of course also made things worse.

"Hey Farina," he said as he passed her; she was brushing her "noble" horse and she looked exhausted. He didn't comment on it, though; she always reacted so badly to it, like he was trying to tell her that she was lazy or something. Anyone that would work _that_ hard was _obviously_ not lazy.

"Lord Hector." She looked guarded, and he saw her left hand grip the currycomb she held just a little tighter. "What is it? Do you have something for me to do?"

"No," he said, lifting his hands as if he thought it might help put her at ease. "I just wanted to say hello."

"I see," she told him, but he didn't think that she did. She looked far too confused.

* * *

Scene 02—Little Sister

One of Hector's more brilliant ideas (in his opinion, of course) was to befriend Florina. She was shy, and she ran away from him sometimes, but she didn't seem suspicious of him, and she never accused him of doing anything wrong, or thinking anything creepy. That meant that Florina, who seemed to have been born with a stammer and a generally shy nature, was at least somewhat normal compared to her middle sister.

Her middle sister, who acted somewhat normal—even _friendly_—around her.

So he started off by doing little things. Florina, when she'd started warming up to him a little, was happy to play along. Besides, she was eager to overcome her fear, and he decided to strike a deal with her that might have made Farina proud, had she known about it. (Well, maybe.)

If she just let him talk to her, he would help her get over her fear of men. After all, he was the strongest—if she could talk to _him_, then she could talk to _anyone_…except Sain, but when did he ever count? He liked to pretend General Wallace didn't count—anyone as old as General Wallace wouldn't be the type of person Florina would really need to talk to, not really.

"S-so what do _you_ get out of this?" she'd asked him, eyes wide.

"Uhm, well, your sister won't think I'm a horrible monster if she sees I'm being nice to you," he admitted.

Florina laughed, though it was stunted and choked off, as if she thought it might be wrong to do it. "W-Well, Lord Hector, she's never been very t-trusting."

"How 'bout you just call me Hector?" he suggested. "If we're gonna be friends, it's only fair, right?"

"All right."

From there on, they spoke somewhat regularly. She taught him a little about her pegasus, Huey, and he tried, somewhat clumsily, to coach her in what he remembered of elocution, because the more he talked to her, the more he suspected that her stammer wasn't directly related to her shyness or her fear of men.

But one day, Farina confronted him about it, looking particularly irritated.

"Lord Hector," she said, "you've been spending a lot of time with my sister, lately…"

"What," he said, grinning, "are you jealous or something?"

"Huh?" She gave him an odd look, startled by the question. "Look," she said, seriously, "if you're trying to get Florina to trust you just so that you can fool around and hurt her, I will kill you. I know Ilian mercenaries aren't supposed to betray their employer, but I'm _not_ afraid to be the first."

He wondered if _he_ was the only thing she _was_ afraid of. "I wouldn't do that to Florina," he said, sounding offended. "We're just friends."

"Well," she said, "you'd better make sure she knows that. Are those your only intentions? Friendship? They'd better be. I'll not have someone hurt Florina—I won't stand for it, do you understand?"

The idea of her being a little jealous didn't seem so far-fetched, but the longer she talked, the less he thought jealousy had anything to do with it. "Do you really think so poorly of me?" he asked her.

"I don't trust anyone," she said, "not with my life, and not with my sister's heart, either."

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. "I would never hurt you. Or Florina."

"Whatever." She waved his concern off. "Just see that you don't."

Maybe she had a point, though; what if his spending time with Florina had led her to believe he was interested in her? He thought that might have made her more nervous around him—he could almost bet it would have made _Farina_ feel that way.

So he confronted her, quietly, when she was grooming Huey.

"Hey, Florina."

"H-Hector!" She smiled broadly, which more than made up for the fact that she still stammered, even if she had gotten better with it. "How are you?"

"Good," he said. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Really?" She set the comb she was using to detangle Huey's mane in her pocket and turned to face him more directly. "What is it?"

This was really hard to say. What if Florina _did_ like him _like that_? He would feel like the worst person in the world. "Uh… You remember what I said I'd get out of our arrangement, right?"

"Yes," she said, and smiled wider. "It might have b-backfired, though. Farina seems annoyed by it, keeps saying you're using me… I told her you w-weren't, but she never listens to anybody but h-herself."

"I've noticed," he said, smiling. "You and I, though—we're just friends, right?"

"Well," she started, blushing madly, "T-This is embarrassing to say…but…"

Hector was worried for a long moment.

But then Florina admitted, "Actually I told myself if I thought of you l-like a _brother_, it might be easier to speak with you without s-stammering. I'm sorry."

"Really?" he asked, more flattered than he would ever admit. He'd always thought if he'd had a sister he'd want her to be kind of like Lyn—really strong and stubborn and obstinate. But Florina was cute and shy and almost Lyn's opposite…and he suddenly decided that actually, Florina would make the better sister. They'd definitely get along better.

"Yeah," she said, blushing harder. "I know it's silly… I don't have any b-brothers though, you know…"

It was a shame she didn't; maybe if she had, she wouldn't be so shy around men. Not with a good male role model in her life…or something.

"Well," he said, "I think that's a nice thought. I don't have any sisters."

She grinned at him. "Well you do now," she offered, still blushing. "If you want, I m-mean!"

He returned her wide smile with one of his own.

* * *

Scene 03—Real Friendly

"So Hector," Lyn asked him over their evening meal. "You've been trying awfully hard to get Florina's sister to pay attention to you."

"Yeah, so?" He swallowed the food in his mouth and gave her an annoyed look. "You've been tryin' awfully hard to get Kent to pay attention to _you_."

"No," she said, "I have not. I've been successful in my endeavors. Unlike you."

"Oh, brother," he said, rolling his eyes and stuffing a roll in his mouth.

"So what are your motives?"

"I don't _have_ any motives."

"Don't lie to me," she said. "I hate being lied to. Everyone has motives for the things they do."

"So what are yours, for pestering me right now?"

"I'm trying to figure out what's going on in that tiny pea-brain of yours," she said, and smugly at that.

Now, Hector knew this was a trap. The entire question had been designed to get him to admit something, whether he wanted to or not.

"Well," he tried carefully, "if one of your knights was acting scared of you, wouldn't you want them to trust you a little?"

"You're trying to get her to trust you?" Lyn laughed. "Why would you care what she thinks?"

"Because!" he began, hotly, "I haven't done anything to _make_ her afraid of me!"

"Ohh, I see."

"What?"

"Your motives."

He didn't like the look on Lyn's face. At all. She looked entirely too pleased with herself.

"My motives are merely friendly," he said.

"Ooh," she teased, grinning wider. "_Friendly, _huh? Yeah, real friendly."

"Shut up, Lyn. I haven't even kissed her." Obviously she had it all wrong. If he was _interested_ in her, he'd definitely make himself clear about it! Why would he bother taking so much time to try and get her to believe he wasn't a horrible person if all he wanted to do was mess around with her? The least he could do for her sanity would be to be honest about what he wanted from her. But he wasn't looking for anything except a little trust.

"Yet?" she asked, looking surprised. "Was that sentence supposed to end in _yet_?"

"No," he said, turning away to hide his embarrassment. "Of course not."

He wasn't embarrassed because it was true—he was embarrassed because he hadn't really thought too much about it, before. He wasn't the subtle type, but if he knew he wanted something, he'd go after it right away without any hesitation.

Farina was pretty, and when she was confident he thought she was damn attractive, but even if he _wanted_ to, it would be wrong to try anything with her when she seemed so anxious around him.

Besides, he didn't even _know_ her. Not that he needed to know a girl before he kissed them, or touched them, or slept with them…but still.

Bah, why would he listen to anything _Lyn_ said, anyway? She was lovestruck over her dumb knight and probably wanted every other person of noble blood to fall in love with _their_ employee so that she wouldn't be alone in her weirdness.

* * *

Scene 04—Awkward Moment

Late spring was wet and it always drifted from hot to cold and back again. Some days would be pleasant, but then the evening would be almost unbearable.

It was on one such day that Lord Hector grabbed one of her breasts.

She was horribly embarrassed to admit, even to herself, that she found him attractive, but she had kind of liked how it felt—had even _blushed_. Her only saving grace was that nobody else had seen but Lord Hector, and he had been just as embarrassed by it, probably more so.

She was mostly embarrassed because it had felt nice and she'd wanted him to do it again. Of course, she didn't dare say that. It would not only be improper—not that she cared about propriety most of the time—but it would also be horrible of her to do something like that with an employer—and willingly!

He had apologized immediately, and she hadn't been able to refute his apology by saying, "If you were so sorry about doing it, why'd you squeeze me for?"

Instead she'd tried to wave it off with a quiet: "Don't worry about it."

It _had_ been an accident; he had stumbled and had reached out for something to steady himself with. If she hadn't been carrying a sharp weapon, she might have held her hands out in front of her, but as it was, she pulled them back so that he wouldn't hurt himself, and her breast was right in the way. He'd squeezed, just once, and pulled away, embarrassed.

He hadn't fallen into her on purpose, and at least he had the good graces to be embarrassed about squeezing her like that. Still, she thought about it a lot that day. What did he think about it? Had he liked it, too? She supposed she'd never know, because she wasn't cruel enough to bring it up.

He apologized for it three times that day, and every time, she waved it off. "It's okay. I know it was an accident."

As evening fell, they stopped to make camp and the temperature plummeted. Everyone had trouble getting to sleep, with it being so cold, and half their blankets having gotten soaked in a sudden spring shower. She shivered a little, her blanket wrapped tightly around her, and tried hard to sleep, just like everyone else.

Some had managed to get there, others had curled up against the person next to them for warmth, but Farina had remained alone. When she was almost tired enough to drift off, she felt something heavy settle over her.

She didn't question it. She just slept.

And when she woke up the next morning, she wondered why it was that Lord Hector had taken it upon himself to dump his cape over her. So she went to ask him.

"Hey, Lord Hector," she said, holding out his carefully-folded cape to him as he pulled up the stakes to his tent. "What was this for?"

He looked a little embarrassed. "You looked cold," he said.

"And you didn't need it?" she asked.

"I don't get cold."

She stared at his arms; his sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, and she didn't miss the goosebumps on his forearms. "Right," she said, slowly, sarcastically.

"Look," he said, and got to his feet, taking his cape from her. "I'm really sorry about yesterday. You _do_ know that was an accident, right?"

"Yeah." She was so confused. Duh. Of course it had been an accident. She didn't think he'd make himself look stupid on purpose just to touch a breast.

He looked relieved. "Then why won't you accept my apology?"

"What?"

"I've apologized four times and you just keep waving it away like you don't want to hear it!"

She stared at him. "Apology accepted," she told him. "I didn't realize it was that important to you."

He looked a little embarrassed. "I didn't mean to do that to you."

"I know," she said, grinning a little. "I figured if you did, you wouldn't go about it in such a roundabout way."

"Yeah," he said, returning her smile, "I'd just grab it."

She laughed a little at that, trying to imagine what it might be like…but then she decided it was actually a pretty attractive option, and shoved the thought of her mind. She couldn't think those thoughts—not about him. It would just be _wrong_, for all kinds of reasons.

The second son of a marquess was still way too high above her.

* * *

Scene 05—Heat Stroke

Hector had asked Farina repeatedly to rest, to take it easy, to stop working so hard, to be more careful with her own health, but he knew she wasn't listening to him, because she had some weird idea in her mind that she was after her money.

Earlier that June morning, she had looked about ready to drop over breakfast, had pushed some food around for a few minutes before giving it to one of the wyverns. He hadn't blamed her at the time, because the day had dawned unnaturally hot and sticky; it was easy to imagine that she might not have felt up to eating with the air being so humid.

But as the day stretched on, the humidity disappeared and was replaced by an oppressive heat. He was sweating in his armor and felt a little ill because of it, so there was no doubt in his mind that Farina, who tried to work so hard, would be feeling less than stellar, too.

Before he could get her attention, though, they fell under attack, and it was a long while before he managed to find her again. The battle was over—Lowen and Marcus were still chasing off a few stragglers—but when he saw Farina, for the first time since the battle had started, he went to her immediately, meaning to pick up on something he'd been trying to tell her the night before—that she needed to rest.

But as he walked closer to her, he noticed that she looked _terrible_—it was fairly obvious that she was dizzy, and she wasn't even able to dismount before she fell to the ground, barely able to keep herself from landing face-down.

He would have tried to catch her but he wasn't nearly close enough. Kneeling next to her, he smoothed back her hair and sighed to see how sweaty her face was. He touched it—her skin was clammy.

When she finally woke up, calling her sister's name as if she thought she'd failed her or something, it took every ounce of self-control not to yell at her for overdoing it. He had been right—she hadn't been well that morning, and she'd probably gotten heat stroke flying around in the sun, already exhausted.

He was surprised when she tried to get away, stumbled to her feet, made an attempt to get back up on Murphy but failed; he did manage to catch her that time, and she fainted or fell asleep in his arms within minutes.

It was a long walk back to the supplies and the healers, but it gave him time to think, at least. He'd have to have a long talk with her when she woke up, he'd have to somehow convince her that she _needed_ to take it easier, for her own sake, and assure her that he wouldn't take her money.

Still, when he made it to the healers, Serra gasped.

"What happened to her?" It wasn't often that someone came back looking whole but unconscious; she probably thought that Farina had been struck down by some kind of dark magic or something.

He shook his head. "Damned fool worked herself half to death," he said.

Serra gestured to a cot in the corner and he moved over to put her down, afraid to take his arms away after he'd settled her there. She really did not look well. And he was so used to her loudly saying _something_, anything at all, that it almost hurt to see her look so terrible.

She really was quite pretty, though not like most women; she'd had to grow on him a bit more before he'd really seen it. But that made her hard to forget.

He touched her face, and she didn't pull away from him. He knew it was because she _couldn't_, but still. It was nice. He thought, for just a moment, that he might like to marry her.

"Lord Hector?" Serra asked, and startled, his concentration was broken.

What had he just thought? Why had he thought it? He didn't know. It was so odd. He didn't even have _feelings_ for her, so why would he ever think of marrying her? He didn't even _know_ her.

But there was something about her that he just _really_ liked. Maybe it was her resolve. Or her dedication. Or the way she'd so boldly threatened him when he'd befriended Florina. She was attractive, too, and he'd already had a bit of an, erm, first_hand_ experience with her body, so he knew that was pretty nice, too.

What _wasn't_ to like about her?

He moved away, embarrassed. "Sorry," he said to Serra, and watched her work, taking a seat nearby on the ground.

"It's perfectly all right," she said, "but you know that you don't have to stay, right? She'll be fine, now."

"I'm gonna stay anyway," he said, sounding serious. "Someone's gotta tell this dumb wench to stop trying to kill herself. And I'm intend to wait here until she wakes up so that I can tell her myself."


	12. Interlude: Part II

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Interlude: Part II  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **4,060  
**Notes:** This is the second half of the interlude. Not proofread because I'm in a hurry, so let me know if you see any glaring errors, please!

* * *

Scene 06—Waking Up

She'd never felt quite like this before—so sluggish, so _tired_. For a long moment, she wasn't sure where she was, and she didn't question it. Her eyelids twitched a bit as if she might wake, but it was just a cruel tease to anyone who might have been watching her; she returned to sleep. Her body seemed to need it, seemed to crave it.

When she finally did wake, it was deep into the night, and, confused, she didn't open her eyes right away. Nothing was right—nothing felt or smelled like it should have.

Her fingers clutched nervously at the blanket covering her, and she tried, almost desperately, to remember where she was and how she'd gotten there.

"Hey," a tired voice said from beside her, startling her greatly. "You're awake?"

Their hand covered her own.

It took her a long moment to recognize the voice, and she didn't know the hand at all—didn't think she did, anyway, not at first. It was too big to be Florina's, and too calloused to be Fiora's, the only two people she could think of right away who might be with her after something happened.

Vaguely she recalled falling from Murphy's back, and how Lord Hector had—

She opened her eyes, almost in a panic, and there he was, kneeling next to her, looking concerned.

"Hey," he said again, calmly.

"Lord Hector," she rasped, frantically trying to push herself up, "I—"

He pushed her back down, suddenly looking annoyed. "Look," he said, "you and I, we've gotta talk."

"I'm sorry," she said as she remembered better what had happened. "It won't happen again." She'd been too dizzy and ill to realize what was going on when he'd touched her hair out on the battlefield, when he'd lifted her up and told her to just relax because he _wanted_ to help her. She hadn't been able to fight him, then, to insist that nothing was wrong because something definitely _was_. The world wasn't supposed to spin like that.

She'd looked like such a fool lying there so helplessly. Why would anyone hire her if she couldn't even overcome a little bit of heat?

"Damn straight it won't happen again," he said, pulling his hand away from her sternum. "It should be illegal to give your employer heart strain like that. I thought for sure when I went over there I'd find an arrow sticking out of you."

She wished there had been. At least it would have been an excuse. At least she would have had a legitimate reason to lie there.

"I know you said you don't _need_ any friends," he continued after a moment, brushing her hair back, just once, "but you've got one anyway. I might have hired you but that doesn't mean I can't be your friend, too, right? I'm not gonna take that money back even if you try to make me, and I'm not going to hit you or anything if you don't do a perfect job every single day."

He touched her hair again, and she closed her eyes, just a little embarrassed and very confused.

"I just thought," he added, "that you ought to know it. Try to believe me. I swear I won't hurt you."

She wasn't sure what he was talking about, or why. Maybe it was because she was so tired, and thirsty, but she couldn't figure out what he had to gain out of a friendship with her. "Why?" she asked after a minute.

"I like you," he admitted. "The way you talk to everyone else, like you don't even care what they think of you—I wish you'd talk to me that way, too. I'd prefer it, actually. And you're interesting, so why _not_?"

He made a good point. She laid there for a few minutes, thinking about what he'd just said, and finally came to the conclusion that…it couldn't hurt to befriend him. Florina only ever said good things about him, and she _had_ gotten better about her shyness. Even her stammering had slowed down a bit.

He couldn't be _all_ bad. He was different from most of the others she had worked for, anyway, which she'd noticed right away. How he played around with the other mercenaries but never asked too much of them, the way he had shown little Nino how to hold the knife if she wanted to try whittling (though he hadn't realized anyone else was watching)… Well, that just wasn't _typical_, and maybe that was what had thrown her off from the start about him—about this whole silly group. Nobody was normal. Her own special sort of crazy didn't even stick out so much, not when she was fighting near Karel and Karla—in fact, if anything, _she_ seemed normal compared to them.

So finally, she said, cautiously, "All right."

And he patted her head, "See? That wasn't so hard," and then touched her arm. "Okay, I want you to get some rest. Friends care about that sort of thing—got it?"

"I guess so."

"Good." He handed her a glass of water and then helped her sit up, which she thought was stupid seeing as how he'd pushed her back down earlier when she'd tried to sit up. "Now, after you drink this, you're sleeping. Serra's put you on bed rest for a few days."

"Bed rest?" she moaned. What a horrible idea. She didn't rest for _anything_, so why—

"Yeah," he answered, and when she handed him the glass of water he pushed her back down. "Sleep. Rest. Until Serra tells you that you can go. If you don't, her wrath is fearsome."

"Experience with this?" she teased a little, settling down. Her muscles ached.

"Yes. It was awful." He blew out the candle that was sitting near them on an upturned crate. "Get some sleep."

"Mm." And she did, but not before she resolved to find out what Serra's wrath aimed at Lord Hector was like.

* * *

Scene 07—Scars

The battle was horrible. They'd never had such a long, drawn-out fight with anyone. Mark's tactics were usually sound enough that they killed or routed the enemy, no matter _who_ they were, with relative ease. But this day, in late June, sweating under his armor, his face streaked with dirt from where he'd had to dive to the ground to avoid the sharp end of a spear, Hector could admit that they would be blessed if nobody died.

Not that they hadn't been blessed all along, but today especially, it was hard to believe that someone in their group wasn't dead. Prayer sounded like a good idea to him, and he'd never been much of a praying man.

He'd just seen Eliwood—who was miraculously unharmed—and he'd seen Florina heading back to the camp with Nino, both of them looking pretty terrible, but he had seen neither Lyn nor Farina, and that bothered him. How could a person miss a flying pony? Or Lyn's ridiculously long hair?

Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of plummeting white, and his heart went with it until he realized the pegasus knight falling out of the sky wasn't Farina or one of her sisters. Wil whooped triumphantly from the safety of the treeline and Hector sighed in relief, his heart still pounding.

When the battle was over, it was after dark, and he retreated to the camp only to be told that someone _had_ died, and for a moment, he feared it was one of the people he felt a personal attachment to, but it had been Erk.

Everyone else had lived, albeit barely, but Erk was gone. Priscilla looked troubled as she tended to Bartre's wounds, but Serra, bent over an unconscious Sain, had tears streaming down her face.

Hector never could tell what it was a man was supposed to do with a crying woman. Was he supposed to say, "I'm sorry" even though it wasn't his fault? Was he supposed to touch her shoulder, her hair? He said nothing because he couldn't think of anything intelligent _to_ say. Nothing would make it better, would make Erk come back, and he had been a good friend of Serra's even if he would only rarely admit it.

He just gave her a strained, sad sort of smile and waited his turn to be looked at. It was nothing serious, just a sprained knee. But then he had to wait for a few hours, because he was lowest priority.

While he waited, he finally got a glimpse of Lyn, hovering around Kent as usual. She was giving him one hell of a lecture about something or another when Farina showed up and took a seat on the ground next to him, a rag pressed against the side of her neck.

"There you are," he said, trying not to look too relieved. "You okay?"

She flashed him a strained smile. "It's not as bad as it looks."

If she was trying to reassure him, it wasn't working. When she pulled the rag away from her neck to fold it back, he could see a long cut that ran from behind her ear beneath the collar of her dress, which had been cut open as well. He thought maybe it stopped at her collarbone, but he couldn't be sure. Her skirt was singed; the skin of her thigh beneath it burned a bright red.

"It's mostly the burn that hurts," she added when he didn't reply right away, too busy staring at her injuries as if he had the power to make them better all on his own.

He noticed a cut above her right eye. "Good," he said, "'cause we're running short on supplies."

She shrugged. "I figured as much, Lord Hector. The burn will only get worse the longer it sits there, so I might as well have that taken care of."

Or healed to the best of Serra's ability. The poor girl had been working for hours; he doubted she had the energy to heal anything completely.

In the end, Serra managed to take most of the pain away from the burn, and made an attempt to stop the bleeding of the cut that ran down Farina's neck; it was successful. Hector had to wait another half-hour after Farina left before Lucius finally looked at his knee; Lucius wasn't really a great healer but he had some abilities that Serra had been helping him with, and he did a good job with Hector's knee, which was a relief.

He didn't relish the thought of limping around the rest of the week until it healed itself.

As he walked back to his tent, he saw that Farina was watching him from her bedroll; it was too hot, most people were saying, to bother with pitching tents—and a waste of time besides.

He came to a stop beside her.

She gave him something like a smile. She looked very tired. Florina was asleep next to her, curled partially into Farina's side, her wavy hair under Farina's hand as she touched it a little to help her sister sleep.

"Hey, Lord Hector" Farina said, softly.

"Hey." He wondered what she wanted.

"Today was my birthday." It was all she said, quietly so as to not disturb Florina, almost as if it were a secret she had chosen to share with him.

He was strangely happy that she had.

Glad that his knee had been healed already, he kneeled beside her and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Happy Birthday," he said, brushing aside a few strands of hair that were hanging in her face.

She just smiled at him, murmuring, "Goodnight," and he returned it before he went back to his tent.

* * *

Scene 08—Teamwork

Farina stared at Lord Hector's axe, at the large crack that ran down the blade. "Dammit," she cursed.

At the same time, he said, "Shit."

"You know," she said after she managed to pull her spear out of the mercenary she'd killed, "only you could be so ignorant of your strength that you'd break a _brand new_ weapon."

"Oh, shut up," he said, but she knew he didn't mean it. He was mostly upset with himself.

"Looks like it's up to me," she said, airily, and wished that Murphy wasn't still recovering from their last battle.

"Don't count on it," he snapped, and threw his axe as hard as he could; it landed right in someone's head: they had been nocking an arrow. It was gruesome.

"Fine," she agreed, "_now_ it's up to me."

"I'm not useless with my hands, you know!" he said, defensively.

"Oh, is that what all the women tell you?" she teased.

"I'll show you if you like," he added with a grin, when he'd stopped looking embarrassed.

It was her turn to blush. "I'm not _that_ desperate!"

He laughed and they pushed out of the clearing they'd been fighting in and headed to the open field. Things were a lot more dangerous for Lord Hector out there without a weapon, but she tried her best to keep anyone from actually trying to take a swing at him. It didn't help that he was a rich, large target: nobody would attack anyone else when there looked to be a general of some kind out on the field, and Lord Hector certainly looked to be their leader. That was why she'd gone to him to seek employment to begin with, after all.

Still, when someone did manage to get to him, Lord Hector had no qualms with fighting with his fists. He wasn't as good at it, but he did have a lot of natural strength that came with his height and build, which he used as effectively as he could, considering he was wearing armor.

Suddenly she found herself pushed to the ground by Hector's arm, which almost clotheslined her at the neck but caught her across her chest instead. She landed on her backside just as someone rushed at Hector with an axe. Had he pushed her aside on purpose? She wasn't sure.

Scrambling back to her feet she saw a gap in the man's leather armor and shoved her spear in him just as hard as she could before she yanked back, hard, forcing the guy to fall back against her. She barely managed to keep from falling to the ground again, but twisted just far enough that he fell and she almost twisted her arm as he took her weapon with him.

With a growl of annoyance she ripped her weapon back out of him only to find that the spearhead had been left behind.

"What!" She was so angry she could have kicked something.

"Hah!" he said, gleefully, and grabbed her arm before he pulled her back to the wagons and the team of people Mark had ordered stay behind to guard their supplies.

When they stopped, finally, she got a good look at him for the first time since the battle had even started. He was trying to get a replacement weapon from Merlinus when she saw the lower half of his back.

"Hey," she said, grabbing _his_ arm and pulling him away from the babbling merchant. "You're not going back out there!"

"What? Why not?" He looked at her hard, "That better not be _your_ blood."

"Of course it's not!" she snapped, and moved behind him. "But _this_," she prodded at the skin next to the skin that had been cut open, "is _yours_."

"It's just a scratch! Eliwood needs me out there, anyway. I—"

"Won't be able to help him if you're dead," she said firmly, and called for Serra before she turned back to him. "Don't you think losing his father and Ninian was enough for the poor guy?"

"I wouldn't _die_," he insisted, but let her drag him over to Serra.

* * *

Scene 09—Knots

"What are you feeding Murphy?"

She'd caught him red-handed, giving her poor pegasus weird things to eat.

"Sugar," he said.

"You would give a pegasus _sugar_?"

"Well, duh. It's a horse with wings. It probably likes what horses like."

She stared at him. "Pegasus," she said. "_He_ is a _pegasus_."

"Yeah, like I said, a flying horse."

"Don't feed him strange stuff!"

"There's nothing strange about sugar!"

"Milord!" Merlinus rushed for him, eyes bloodshot, lips trembling. "You've pilfered our s-s-stocks to feed to the b-b-beasts! How could you! Those are our precious s-s-supplies!"

Farina raised her eyebrows.

Merlinus, angry? She'd never seen it before. If he harnessed his fear and turned it into rage, he'd stammer the enemy into an early grave, maybe. Well, it was a thought.

Three days later she found him with an armful of apples, giving them all to Murphy.

"Stop doing that, I said!" she told him, pulling them out of his arms. "You'll make him fat!"

"Looks like he needs to gain a little weight," he told her, and then looked straight at her face and said, "and so do you."

"What!" She would have been outraged if she didn't suddenly feel self-conscious. "There's nothing wrong with my body!"

It was a pretty good one. It wasn't like he didn't know—_he_ was the one who had accidentally planted his hand on one of her breasts and squeezed.

"I didn't say there was," he told her.

"Yes you did! You said—"

Then she realized he had gone right back to trying to feed Murphy.

"Stop doing that!" she told him again. "You'll make him sick giving him so much crap to eat!"

"But he likes it!"

"Yeah, and I like strawberries, but they make my throat swell until I choke, so I don't eat them!"

"Really?" he asked, and she took the opportunity to take the apples out of his hand.

"Yeah, but Murphy won't choke," she said. "You'll give him stomach problems. You can throw up if you feel sick to your stomach, but a horse can't, so—"

"Are you admitting he's a horse, then?"

He looked far too smug, so she sniffed, lifting her chin into the air. "No. _Never_." And then she left.

A week after that, and she saw him standing over my Murphy again, this time with a tankard of ale. When she got closer, she realized that he was letting her pegasus _drink_ out of his cup.

"Hey!" she said, annoyed again. "What weird crap are you giving him _now_?"

"Look," he said, holding up the tankard for her to see. "He emptied it!"

"You gave my pegasus _ale_?!"

"Yeah, so? It's made out of grains."

"It's alcohol! What're you tryin' to do, make him sick?!"

"Oh come _on_," he said, sounding annoyed, "if _I_ can't get drunk off of one tankard of ale, surely a horse weighing more than twice what _I _do won't, either!"

"That's not made for him to consume!" she argued. "Besides, you just wasted good ale on a pegasus!"

"At least he liked it," he said, smirking.

"What're you tryin' to do, buddy up to him?"

"Maybe."

"He can't carry you," she told him, quite seriously. "You weigh too much."

"Hey! I do _not_ weigh too much!"

"For him to carry you, yes you do. You deserved it anyway, after you told me I was too skinny!"

"You are," he protested, setting the tankard on top of the hitching post and putting his hands around her waist. "Look! I can almost touch my fingers together!"

"That's stupid," she insisted. His fingers were touching at the small of her back, but his thumbs, pressed against her stomach, were not touching. Not even close! She used her left hand to try and measure the distance. "At least a few inches," she told him, sourly.

His answer was to try and squeeze her more, to get his thumbs to touch.

"Hey, I gotta breathe, you know!" she snapped, eyes flicking up to his. Her heart almost stopped in that moment, to see him standing so close to her, touching her like that. How had this happened? She swallowed nervously and tried to push away the warmth she felt flooding her entire body.

Elimine! She _wanted_ him. Him! Lord Hector! That was not okay.

Flustered, she stepped back and he let her go. The moment was broken.

"Don't give Murphy weird things," she told him, but she didn't have the wherewithal to yell at him. "He likes carrots, anyway."

"Carrots?"

"Just one," she said, "a day. Or you'll make him fat."

"Good to know," he said, and smiled at her.

She felt her stomach tighten, and she blamed it on the fact that he was doing nice things by befriending her pegasus, but she knew what the cause _really_ was.

* * *

Scene 10—Almost-Kiss

"If you let me sink," she threatened, "I will kill you. I will flail around until I resurface, and then I will kill you. If I drown, then I will haunt you, and I will somehow manage to kill you."

"Calm down," he teased, and tickled the small of her back with his fingers a little. "I've got you."

She seemed to believe him despite the uncertain look on her face. She held her breath and leaned back.

It was a horrible, stifling summer day. There were no clouds. They'd stopped near a large pond or a lake or something—Hector didn't really know the difference—to make sure the horses got water and that their canteens were filled before they moved on, and Farina had come to him, asking him if he knew how to swim. When he said that he did, she'd insisted he taught her.

He hadn't been very sure of the idea. When he'd seen her soaked through after a rainstorm, he'd been stupidly attracted to her, with her hair curling as it started to dry, and her dark dress clinging to her body in all the right places.

But she'd smiled at him so pleasantly that he hadn't been able to tell her no.

A week ago, she'd admitted to him that she'd been raped, and he had been horrified by the idea that someone would have hurt her like that, but the advantage to his knowing it was that he was extra careful in the water with her. He wasn't going to do anything that might make her uncomfortable.

At least, that was his intent.

But she was awfully attractive, floating on the water like that, with his hand beneath her, her dress soaked through and clinging to her breasts, her stomach, the fabric falling between her thighs.

There just wasn't any conceivable way he could avoid being attracted to her.

And then she started to sink.

He pulled her out right away. "Hey, what happened?" he asked her, having lifted her right up into his arms. He didn't care that he didn't have a shirt on, because she felt so nice pressed up against him like that, but he thought that maybe she would.

"I don't know," she said, confused, clinging to him a little.

He set her back on her feet, carefully, but the way she slid down the front of him as he tried to set her on the ground almost made him groan. It was _stupid_ that he was so physically attracted to her. Maybe her can-do attitude helped him want her.

When she was back on her feet again, he laughed at her disheveled hair and brushed it back before he touched her face, his palm cupping her cheek.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was leaning forward, until his forehead was nearly pressed against her.

A sudden _wave_ of water washed over the two of them just then, and Lyn laughed as she swam by, sending congratulations to Nino, who was practicing her magic and had somehow managed to create a large disturbance in the water.

By the time he'd managed to pull Farina back her feet, and had shaken the water out of his hair, the feeling had passed. A shame, but it was for the best. He shouldn't feel so attracted to her anyway, he thought.

So he scooped up a handful of water and threw it at her.

"Hey!" she shouted back, annoyed, and threw water back at him.


	13. Clumsy With Words

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Clumsy With Words  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **2,116  
**Notes:** Chapter Eleven. Unbeta'd because I stayed up until 5:00am to write this. After I finished some lovely homework en franҫais, and a lovely pre-lab about nuclear power, I decided I'd write this out for Kender, who had a fantastic day today (err…yesterday _technically_): she won a medieval study award. I figured I'd try to make the happy last a little longer!

* * *

He could feel her wildly fluttering pulse beneath his lips as they brushed over the hollow of her throat, could hear her breathless little moans as he rubbed one of her breasts through the fabric of her dress. Her short nails dug into his back through his doublet and he groaned, not so much from the action as the thought of how much nicer it would be if she were touching his skin, instead.

Hector wanted to fuck the woman he had pressed up against his bedroom wall.

It was for that reason that he stopped, pulled away from her, both of them a little out of breath, both of them wanting, aching, _yearning_ for one another.

There was a mumbled apology, but he couldn't tell if it had come from him or from her; when she answered it with a quiet sort of, "Don't be," he knew he had been the one to speak.

He excused himself and got out into the corridor before he remembered that it was _his_ room they were in, so she ought to be the one to leave, not him.

When he returned, she laughed in that deep from-the-gut sort of way she always did when she found something especially funny, and though he laughed, too, he regretted not being able to hear it more often. It was well worth the embarrassment he felt, well worth playing the part of a fool—just this once, to hear her happiness.

People were good at faking it, at looking happy, at acting happy, but nobody could fake _sounding_ it. For just a moment, he thought she sounded that way—not content or simply amused, but genuinely glad.

To be alive? To be with him?

He didn't know and had no intention of asking.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said. A definite thing, not a question.

"Yes," was her response, and he saw her crooked nose twitch a little in amusement before she gave him a smile, "you will."

* * *

Hector had always been clumsy with words and numbers.

Eliwood accused him of snoring during maths classes, but the truth was that he simply didn't understand them and didn't care to. He was the second son of Marquess Ostia; why would he _ever_ need to know that garbage?

He'd shared his dumb, clumsy dreams with Eliwood when they were both still young.

"That's a horrible idea," Eliwood had said. His freckles had mostly faded but a few still sprinkled the bridge of his nose.

Hector snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. "And why's that?" he asked, or perhaps demanded.

"Fighting in an arena isn't a good way to make a living. What if you get hurt—then you're out of a job!"

"Like _that_ would happen," he scoffed.

Back then he had taken everything for granted. It wasn't until he'd talked to people like Serra and Farina that he started to understand how well off he was living his sheltered castle life.

He'd been out to arena matches, had fought in them and had never lost…but some people were out there fighting for the money because they needed it so damn much, a thought that had never really crossed his mind as a young teenager who did it for the sheer fun of it, the thrill, the sport.

He loved winning. And Farina did, too—or had, back when they were both still teenagers. But the difference between them was that her life depended upon winning, every single time, and his did not. If he sustained a serious injury, he could have retreated back to Castle Ostia. He'd have the best healers to attend to him, and if they couldn't fix him, he'd still be okay.

That was not true for anyone else who fought to live like Farina did. He supposed in a way, she'd helped him see that he was selfish for thinking only of himself for so damn long. She'd never said as much—she was not so forward, so bold, or perhaps not so stupid as to step over the bounds between social rankings—but the little things she did or said—or didn't do, or didn't say—brought him to that understanding, anyway.

Even after fourteen years of ruling Ostia, of making laws and ending them, of the constant learning-learning-learning of things he'd ignored as a child because the second son shouldn't have to care about how the law worked, he was still clumsy with words.

Farina had assumed right just a few days earlier, had said he wasn't as angry as he sounded; he had become transparent, or perhaps weak.

His advisors had suggested that he remarry.

It had been a mere suggestion, but it had hurt.

Was Rosanne's sacrifice to give Ostia Lilina not good enough? The thought made him angry, and he was angrier, still, at the thought that his daughter wasn't as good as a man. Well, she'd be a fine ruler, eventually; he'd make sure of it. She was already halfway there: she had the compassion and interest, and she was smart in ways that Hector had never bothered to apply himself.

But she was still a child. She needed time.

He didn't think remarrying and magically producing a son would change anything, would make Ostia stronger—or better.

It was only a suggestion, so he wasn't sure why he had been upset, or why he had pretended to be even angrier than he really was.

After Farina had gone to her room, leaving him alone to sort out his thoughts and his desires, he thought that maybe he had the answer: he wanted to marry her.

It was his chance, wasn't it? A chance to take back that which he had lost? No, Farina was right, and deep down he knew better: what they had been years ago was something forever lost to both of them. They didn't have to forget it—and couldn't, Hector thought—but to feel that way again would be impossible.

Things were simpler, then.

Now they were complicated.

Or were they?

He wasn't so sure. He was too clumsy with words to explain it even to himself.

* * *

The next day, he kissed her good morning—just a chaste little meeting of his lips against her cheek, but it was nice.

They talked of everything and nothing, and finally he said, suddenly, randomly, with no pretense of buildup—because he was so clumsy:

"Why don't we get to know one another again?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

Tentatively, he said, "We've both changed, haven't we? You have, at least a little. I want to get to know you."

_For you_, he wanted to add. He liked the feeling of her lips against his, of her breast in his hand, her nipple hardening as his thumb brushed over it, of the dip in her waist and the curve of her face, but that wasn't enough. It would never be enough.

He knew the important things, how she'd been hurt, badly, a couple of times in her life…but when it came to the small things, he didn't know anything.

What was her favorite color? Did she have a meal she was especially fond of? What did she think about cats, dogs, birds? Did she like fish? What about chocolate? Or lemons? What did she dream about? Did she like to play cards? Horseshoes?

Fourteen years ago, he would have wanted to know those things, but now he was desperate to know them. It was almost a hunger, stronger than the desire to feel her body against his.

It was odd to feel that way, when he'd never really considered it before.

Wanting this knowledge—was this a sign of maturity? Of a good ruler? Or of a good man?

A man who wanted, desperately, to fall back into love with someone he'd lost to his own cowardice?

Had he ever _stopped_ loving her, though?

The thought gave him pause.

He wasn't sure. He didn't think so. But for a while, it had been on pause. He remembered her fondly, hoped she'd come back to him. He had never been given any kind of real closure, because even Florina's little note wasn't good enough to be considered such.

Still, now that she was back, he didn't want to let her go, didn't want to see her slip through his fingers because he was too weak or stupid or clumsy with words to tell her to stay.

"I'll only agree if we get a fair exchange of information," she said, and he could tell that she was teasing, but she was right: it would only be fair if they both asked questions and answered them.

"All right," he said, pushing his memories away. "Ask me a question."

"What's your favorite color?" she asked.

* * *

Hector knew the difference between having sex and making love, but there was a third term he'd never given much thought to until he'd had Farina pressed up against his bedroom wall, desire tugging insistently at him: fucking.

Sex was simple procreation, nothing special. He thought that Serra and Oswin probably had sex; maybe it was cordial sex, but they were not in love when they were married, and the stupid, stubborn part of himself that had refused to really get to know Rosanne told him that it was impossible to fall in love if you weren't in love when you took your vows.

Making love was romantic, loving and slow, maybe even tedious. Eliwood and Ninian made love; his friend had always treated his wife so carefully that he couldn't imagine them doing anything else, not with her fragile health and his romantic tendencies. Eliwood believed that holding back, that being careful and sweet and _gentle_, was how a man ought to show love to his woman.

But Hector had always been bold and forward and when he really felt something, it was hard to hold it back. If he loved someone, if he really cared, then why should he pretend he didn't? Why should he waste time with words when he could be showing her how he felt about her?

That was fucking—maybe it was rough, an unbridled sort of passion, but it was genuine. Real. Not that making love was less so, but it wasn't in Hector's nature to act that way, and he knew it.

Farina was smart—even if she'd been told so many times that she wasn't that she had started to believe it—and pretty. She had a beautiful body and she was compassionate when one bothered to look. He liked her short hair because it was so fitting for her in-your-face attitude _and_ it suited her face. She wasn't perfect but she was the next best thing.

With her between him and his bedroom wall, he'd wanted to show her all of that, and it had been so close to overwhelming that it had scared him. He hadn't been able to recall how they'd ended up back in his room to begin with, and he didn't know what he wanted, or what he _should_ want, or what _she_ might want from him.

All he'd known, in that instant, was that he'd wanted to fuck her—maybe even up against the wall.

But he didn't know her like he wanted to, and such thoughts weren't right, not to have about Farina, not yet. Too many bad things had happened in her life; he had to tread lightly, had to be a little gentle, at first, had to know for sure that she was comfortable around him, with him.

And then, if she wanted him to, he'd fuck her—or make love to her—anywhere she wanted: up against the wall, in his bed or hers, on the floor, in the bath.

But first, he had to know more about her. He wanted to know more—_needed _to.

"I don't have a favorite color," he said in reply to her question. "How can a person pick a favorite color? That'd be like having a favorite child."

She laughed. "Fair enough."

"So what's your favorite color, then?"

There was a small pause as she took a drink of her tea, and then she said, quite decisively, "Yellow."

"Really?" He hadn't expected that. "Why?"

"Sunlight, of course," she told him, smiling. "Or maybe sunflowers. Or both."

That afternoon, when she was out with Murphy, he had the servants fill her room with sunflowers. Just because he could.

Or maybe because she deserved it.

But he heard that deep, from-the-gut laughter all the way down the corridor, and he wasn't sorry he'd done it.


	14. Definitely Beautiful

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Definitely Beautiful  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **1,352  
**Notes:** Chapter Twelve. The phrase "definitely beautiful" is borrowed from the inspiring clip "What Teachers Make" by Taylor Mali. If you want to _be_ a teacher, look it up on YouTube. If not, look it up anyway. This is unbeta'd, and it's probably one of the most boring chapters, so I'm sorry. Happy Birthday, Kender!

* * *

Lilina took to spending about an hour each morning in Farina's room. Hector had offered to make it stop, but Farina thought she understood why the girl did it and told him not to concern himself with it.

Though they grew up nothing alike, Farina remembered sharing a one-room house with her mother and two sisters; there had never been any privacy at all. Lilina had an entire castle at her disposal, but the only time she ever got a break from her governess was when she was under the careful eye of one of her tutors; the girl never had any privacy, either.

Not that she had privacy on the floor of Farina's room, but it was quiet, and safe.

Usually Farina worked a bit on her needlework—which was poor, if anything—and Lilina studied numbers or drew pictures of the barn cats. It was a nice, companionable silence.

Farina found that she rather liked it.

One such morning, she looked over the edge of her bed to see Hector's daughter writing furiously across her slate, over and over, her chalk marking the same pattern of lines in a long column.

"What does that say?" she asked her, setting down her needlework.

"_I_ know what it says," Lilina countered. "I'm not dumb."

"That's not what I meant," Farina said. "_I_ don't know what it says."

Lilina eyed her for a long moment, as if she didn't believe her, but then she scowled. "My tutors say I must never spell these words wrong again, or I shall never be able to rule Ostia. So I am copying down the words "definitely" and "beautiful" to ensure my place on the throne."

Farina tried to imagine that the neat lines on the slate said "definitely beautiful," but having no concept of understanding it, could not. Instead she pictured her mother's hands, Florina's sleeping face, Fiora's head bowed in prayer.

Definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, _definitely beautiful_.

She missed her sisters something fierce.

It took her a moment to realize that Lilina was staring at her, and she averted her gaze, embarrassed. "You seem to know what you're doing," she finally said.

"They say if I write it one-thousand times, I'll never forget it."

And Farina thought, maybe if someone had told her anything positive a thousand times, she'd never forget it, either.

* * *

Farina went to Hector, later that evening, to inquire after work.

"What would you want that for?" he asked her, dumbfounded, and she sighed.

"I need to stay busy."

He grinned, good-naturedly. "I can keep you busy," he said, and she knew he was teasing, so she countered him.

"Fifteen minutes a day isn't busy enough."

He laughed and looked, for a moment, as if he wanted to protest it, but she was glad when he didn't, because it would only make her want him more. "All right," he said, nodding. "I don't trust anyone to root around in my study, but it does need organized."

"Done!" she said, pleased. She did enjoy cleaning; compared to forking dung out of a barn stall, compared to tilling a field, it was relaxing work.

She didn't know how much longer she would be staying, but she couldn't stand being idle for long; it made her feel lazy, and then she was reminded that nobody appreciated laziness in a person—never, not for any reason.

He touched her face then, just one brush of his fingers against her cheek, and she realized that his hands, still overly large and strong, were no longer covered with rough, uneven callouses. She found that she missed them, a little; they were so much a part of him fourteen years ago that it was hard to believe they weren't anymore.

* * *

Nothing had ever been _certain_ for Farina of Ilia. She'd had what she considered to be an average childhood, which ended before she'd entered her teens. Her father left early in her life and her mother died young.

By default, she supposed, money had been the only thing she could definitely count on. People messed up—even perfect Fiora. Things happened. But once a person had gold, it was theirs to spend. It was guaranteed to buy something—food or shelter or maybe even freedom.

When she had joined Hector and his entourage, she'd thought at first that she would use the money he'd paid her to buy a little house somewhere on a tiny plot of land. Somewhere warmer, like Pherae or Ostia or Caelin. Then she'd convince her sisters to move in with her, and they could take _respectable_ jobs, where Fiora wouldn't have to worry so much and Florina wouldn't have to be afraid.

But things changed. Others needed the money more than she did, and even though many people claimed she thought of nothing but money, she did have a heart, and sometimes the plight of others made her act with it instead of her mind.

After the Dragon's Gate had been sealed, she'd had to start over, and she'd done just fine for herself—she'd even been somewhat happy—until Murphy was injured outside of Ostia.

Then things turned sour. How could she write to her sisters? Even if she could, how could she afford to send the letter? How could she explain that she was now nothing but dead weight to them?

Worse, still, how could she go to the castle to seek an audience with Lord Hector when she'd practically swindled him—even if it _was_ his own fault for being stupid—out of a _lot_ of gold years earlier? When she had feelings for him that he'd purposefully ignored?

Perhaps she had been foolish to remain in Ostia, but a small part of her thought that she could eventually climb her way out. If she worked hard enough, she told herself, she could do anything she wanted.

But no matter how much she wished that were true, it wasn't. The peer system ensured that hard work and perseverance meant nothing: those on the bottom would stay at the bottom.

Even years later, after being found by Lord Hector, there was still nothing certain about her situation or her life. What was she doing in Castle Ostia? How long would she remain there? When would she work up the courage to tell Hector that she couldn't stay forever—that she had to make her own way?

* * *

"You're from Ilia, right?"

Lilina had found Farina in the stables, and as soon as she realized that she was Murphy's original owner, she found all kinds of questions to ask of her.

"Yes."

"What's it like there? I've never been."

Farina hoped that Lilina would never have to go there, even to visit. "It snows a lot," she said. "It's dark almost half the year." Then, reluctantly, she admitted, "It's a wasteland."

"Are there pegasi everywhere?"

"Not anymore. They're mostly bred in captivity, now."

"A shame." Lilina's feet were on the lowest board of Murphy's stall door, and she swung back and forth on it, sighing. "So what will happen to Murphy?"

Farina paused. "He's not well," she finally said. "Your father has promised to keep him here for me."

"So he belongs to Daddy, now?" she asked. "Erm…I mean Father?"

"That's right."

"So…if I want to take care of him myself, I'll have to ask Father?"

"Yes."

She flopped over the door and sighed again. "He'll _never_ give me permission!"

Farina raised an eyebrow. "Maybe you'll just have to prove that you're capable, first," she suggested. "Murphy seems to like you very much, if he stood still long enough to let you bathe him and do his mane up with all those ribbons."

"Do you really think so?"

Smiling, Farina said, "I know so."

Lilina brightened at that thought, and reached a hand out over the stall door to pet Murphy's nose.

"See, boy?" she asked, rubbing the soft velvety fur there. "I will take care of you forever and ever."

And Farina thought, just for a moment, as she saw Lilina's small hands comforting a worn old pegasus: _definitely beautiful_.


	15. Inequality

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Inequality  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Friendship  
**Words: **1,618  
**Notes:** Chapter Thirteen. Unbeta'd because I'm just that lazy.

* * *

Hector didn't know what to do with Farina. Here was his chance to pick right up where they'd left off so many years ago, and in a sense, they already had. He hadn't forgotten how badly he'd wanted to fuck her, right up against his bedroom wall, just a few days earlier.

He cared about her too much to let himself do something stupid, but nothing felt good enough. He couldn't ask her to marry him, not yet. He hardly knew her, he thought. What was enough—when did you know a person well enough that marriage was a good idea? He hated to compare it with his marriage to Rosanne, for he'd known nothing about Rosanne when he'd taken his vows, and it had worked well enough; they'd had a civil marriage, at least.

Was it stupid of him to want more than that with Farina, though? Was it selfish? Wasn't marriage _supposed_ to be a little selfish, at least in favor of men?

The thought made him feel angry, not just because of Farina, but because of Lilina, too. He hated the idea that Lilina might have to marry someone, someday, and that, no matter who she married, she'd be considered as something less than her husband.

And why was that, really? Perhaps tradition did more harm than good. He could understand if people thought Farina was beneath him; she had no rank at all. But Lilina was heir to Ostia just as Roy was heir to Pherae, yet Roy would always be looked upon as something _better_.

This was, he thought, why he'd wanted a son to begin with.

He'd never trade Lilina for anything—_never_. She was impulsive sometimes, but she was a part of him, and he had fallen in love with her almost at first sight.

But, he sighed, her life would be so much easier if she grew up to be a man instead of a woman.

He felt guilty for thinking that way, though; Farina was a strong and capable woman, even if she did run herself into the ground working too hard, even if she had ended up on hard times. He admired her tenacity very much, even if it did drive him crazy. She never gave up on anything, ever, and were she born into privilege, she might have gone very far in life.

Sighing over the depressing turn his thoughts had taken, Hector retreated to the stables.

He never spent much time there as a child because he was a terrible horseman, but when he thought about it, he supposed that feeding Murphy all of the time during the war had been its own sort of therapy for him, despite the fact that Farina obviously did not appreciate it.

Upon his return to Ostia, he realized that he missed spending time with Murphy, which was odd because he'd started doing it just to get to know Farina better.

As the guards opened the stable doors for him, he remembered Farina telling him, years ago, "Murphy's not a pet, he's my _partner_," and he wondered how it was that a horse could be put on the same level as another human being.

His thoughts were cut off immediately when the first thing he saw in the great aisle of the stables was his daughter—sitting on Murphy's back.

"Father!" she said, cheerfully, before he could come up with a reprimand. "Look! He's letting me ride him!"

He was, too, and calmer than Hector had ever seen him. Murphy really wasn't feeling his best if he moved so slowly. During the war Farina always had trouble controlling him; he'd strain at the bit, toss his head, stamp his feet…but now he listened to Lilina as if he'd lost all his fight.

And maybe he had. Pegasi were supposed to fly, and now that Murphy couldn't, had he lost his purpose according to his own mind?

"Get down from there," he ordered, unable to forget how many times Murphy had shouldered Farina, knocking her to the ground, how many times he'd waited until she wasn't paying attention to throw her. Even if Farina had always gotten up laughing about it, he didn't trust that Lilina would be so lucky.

"Aw," she said, and reluctantly dismounted as Hector took Murphy's halter in his hand, his knuckles brushing across the pegasus's cheek. "He's safe, Daddy."

"Did you ask permission to ride him?" he asked, wondering if Farina would think it was a good idea to let Ostia's heir ride a crippled pegasus. What if he tried to fly?

"No," she said, and turned pleading eyes to him. "Father, may I please ride him?"

Startled, he blinked at her. "I didn't mean me," he said. "Did you ask Farina?"

"She said that Murphy is yours now, and that I should ask you if it was all right. I promised Murphy that I would take care of him forever and ever, Daddy. You know royalty can't lie—it'd be shameful not to keep a promise."

Hector gave Murphy a critical once-over and sighed. "Forever might not be very long for him," he told his daughter.

If anything, that only fueled her desire to be given permission, and she clasped her hands in front of her, cocking her head to the side as she rocked back and forth; damn, she knew that look combined with that innocent stuff got him every time. If she wasn't so cute, he'd maintain that it was a bad idea. But she was so determined; how could he deny her something so simple?

As if that wasn't enough, she added, "All the more reason he should have me taking care of him, right? So that the end of his life is full of love."

"Fine," he said, feeling sour that he'd lost against a child. Granted, it was _his_ child, so the loss wasn't so terrible, but still…

She squealed with delight and bounced on the spot, leaping forward to hug him around the waist. "You won't regret it!" she assured him. "I will be the _best_ pegasus caretaker _ever_!"

"See that you do," he said, lightheartedly, and ruffled her hair. As she pouted and smoothed it back down, he added, "If you go outside make sure one of the guards holds a lounging rope."

Just in case, he thought. Farina had insisted that Murphy couldn't fly, but the animal was just as capricious as its owner, and it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Yes, Father," she said.

"And ask Farina to write down any specific instructions regarding caring for Murphy."

Lilina started to nod, but stopped. "Oh," she said. "I can't."

Hector's eyes narrowed; it wasn't like his daughter to make excuses or to be lazy. "Why not?"

"I mean," she said slowly, "I could ask…but I don't think she can write it down, not if she can't read."

"Huh," was all he could think to reply with. She couldn't read? That was a pretty big thing, but he supposed he was a fool for assuming that someone of such an utterly low rank would have had access to education that would give her literacy.

He headed up to his study.

* * *

The inside of the room was light; Farina had pulled back the thick drapes and he could see that she had made massive progress on the room in very little time, considering she'd only been allowed in to clean the previous morning.

She had been leaving paperwork for him to sort through, and now he thought he understood why; how could she organize paperwork if she couldn't read what it was about?

The door was ajar and when he peered inside, he found her sitting on the floor, a letter open in her hand. She was tracing the words with a finger, over and over. When he stepped closer, she heard his boots against the carpet and looked up, startled.

There were tears on her face.

"Hector," she murmured, looking plaintive, and held the letter out to him.

He took it, but said nothing else.

"It's from Florina, isn't it?" she asked.

He looked down, glanced at the faded ink. "Yes," he said, and sat beside her on the floor. "You can't read?"

She shrugged. "A few words," she said. "You know, I thought if I earned enough money that Florina could learn to read and write, maybe she wouldn't have to fight for a living. When she had to, anyway, I was convinced it had all been a waste of time. But I don't regret it anymore."

She looked at the letter with such longing that Hector could almost have cried. If he found an old letter from Uther, he wondered how he might react.

"How did you read Dart's map if you couldn't read?" he asked.

She flushed, and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. "He talked to himself a lot," she admitted. "And there were pictures."

He laughed at that, amused at the idea, at the memories, not at the fact that she was illiterate.

"Hey," he said, leaning forward to pull her against him in a half-hug.

She leaned against him, knees drawn up. "Yeah?"

"Do you want me to read this to you?"

She stiffened. "You would do that?"

"Of course."

"I—yeah, please. I haven't heard from them in so long; I don't care how old it is."

"After this, then," he said, "how about you tell me what to write and we write to your sisters to see how they're doing?"

She pressed her face into his chest for a moment and just nodded, seemingly at a loss for words.

He began to read.


	16. Not Good Enough

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Not Good Enough  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance, Friendship, Family  
**Words:** 1,347  
**Notes:** Chapter Fourteen. Dun dun dunnnn. Finals are over so hopefully I'll be updating sooner rather than later. This chapter wasn't proof-read.

* * *

Florina's letter made her cry. It wasn't anything special—just a play-by-play of the various goings-on in Ilia from quite a number of years back—but it had been so long since Farina had heard from either of her sisters that she could hardly stand it. When she'd left home as a teenager she hadn't seen her sisters for three years, until meeting them under her contract working for Hector, but things had been different, then.

After the letter was read, Hector held her. She wasn't sure how much time passed that way, but it was more than an hour.

Finally, he pulled away. "Did you want to try writing to your sisters, now?" he asked her. "I can send a messenger out with it first thing in the morning. One of the perks of being the marquess, you know. You could even ask them to come visit you."

She hesitated despite herself. "I'll write to them," she said after a moment, back aching from sitting on the floor for so long.

He stood and went to the desk to get something to write on. "You don't want them to visit?"

"They'll be busy." Very busy. And she didn't want them to see her like this—living in Hector's castle like his pet or something. Like a charity case.

"I'm sure they'll be relieved to hear from you."

She stood and walked over to the desk, perching on the edge of it as he made room for the clean roll of parchment.

"What do you want to say?" he asked.

And she realized she didn't know. "I just want them to know that I'm all right."

"I'll admit that I'm writing the letter, then." He wrote some stuff down, and she watched the quill scratch against the paper, still finding it hard to believe that what he was writing was something another person could look at, understand, and respond to. After a while, he paused. "What else do you want them to know? Did you want to ask after their health or anything?"

"Yeah. Ask Florina if she's still shy, and ask Fiora if she's learned to manage her money, yet."

When he reached the bottom of the letter, he signed his name and then wrote another little sign, and looked up at her. "I think you should sign your name, too," he said.

"I don't know how."

"I'll show you."

He took out another piece of parchment and wrote her name on it very neatly. "This is your name."

"That's what it looks like?" she asked, staring at it. She already knew about the first letter of her name, because she shared it with both of her sisters, but still—it was so cool to see that written out there. Her name. Hers. "That's my name?"

He smiled at her. "Yeah. Try copying it down a few times so that you can write it on the letter to your sisters."

She tried, she really did. But he told her to hold the quill in her right hand and she felt that she had no control over it. "Are you _sure_ I'm supposed to hold it in this hand?" she asked, annoyed with herself.

"Yes. Wait—wait. I almost forgot that _you're_ left-handed. Sorry." He pried the quill from her right hand and forced it into her left. "Try it this way."

It was slightly more successful, but her best wasn't even half as good as his. Still, she "signed" her name at the end of the letter, and he rolled it up when the inked dried, sealing it afterward.

"Hey," she said, looking down at the roll of parchment she'd been practicing on. "I have a favor to ask."

"Oh?"

"Can I keep this?"

He looked startled. "Why would you want that?"

"Because it's my name."

He just smiled a little and rolled it up again, handing it to her. "If you write it a thousand times," he began, but she cut him off:

"Then I'll never forget it."

* * *

During afternoon tea, a week later, he'd kissed her. It wasn't unexpected—she'd seen the signs on his face as she'd swallowed her drink—but things moved quickly. Usually he stopped when they were both breathless and he couldn't help but groan at the feeling of her body pressed against him.

But that afternoon, he didn't stop, and she didn't want him to.

She couldn't remember, later, how they'd ended up in his bedroom, how she'd ended up on the bed beneath him, with his hand up her skirt stroking her as she moaned his name, but right in the middle of it, a thought struck her, and she sat up, bewildered, pushing him away.

"What is it? What's wrong?" he was asking, concern on his face despite the fact that she knew he wanted to take her right then and there—he couldn't hide the physical evidence of that. "Did I hurt you?"

But she just shook her head and slid off of the bed, knees trembling so hard she wondered if she'd make it back to her room without falling over.

He went to her, though, the mood completely ruined, and tried to help smooth down her dress, taking her arm to steady her. "What's the matter? I'm sorry, I didn't think—"

"We," she began, finally, her voice strained, "we can't. We can't do this."

"Because you don't want to?"

"No, that's not it." She tried to shrug him off, but he was persistent.

"Well then, why not?"

"Because I won't be here forever!" she said, loudly, and ran from him before she could second-guess herself.

Back in her room, she locked the door and fell into her own bed in tears. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted him—she _had_, badly, and that was the problem. Or part of it, anyway.

She couldn't put her thoughts into any semblance of order, not even to try and think about what she wanted. She wanted him. Him! Hector of Ostia! She'd been happy to kiss him, and she'd not been displeased to feel his fingers rub her nipples, but sex was something else entirely.

Sex had to _mean_ something to her. Had to. Never before, but now—with Hector. Even if it didn't mean much to him, it would mean a lot to her. It would take a lot for her to lower her defenses enough to sleep with him. But what it meant to her would never be the same to him.

She _needed_ love. She needed it to happen because of love, not because of the idea of love, or of loving, but actual love. It was just too fast—too fast for her to understand, to process, to give thought to. They hadn't talked about it. She needed his patience, his cooperation, and he wasn't the patient type—he never had been.

Maybe he'd gotten better, but he was still the same in most respects, and so was she. She hadn't stopped looking over her shoulder, hadn't stopped worrying, wondering about stupid things like ulterior motives and if someone would _ever_ tell her they loved her before they fucked her, meaning it and not just saying in the hopes that she'd believe their lie and let them do whatever they wanted.

More than anything, she wanted to let things happen between them, but she couldn't. She was too needy. And at the end of the day, what would it lead to? Nothing? Marriage? What about Hector's position in life? Wouldn't everyone think him daft to consider marrying her? What would happen to Lilina? Was it fair for him to remarry, to make her a Roseanne replacement?

Her mind wouldn't stop churning, and she felt sick to her stomach.

When Hector came to her door, a few hours after the incident, presumably to apologize, she said nothing to indicate that she was even in the room.

He tried the handle, found the room locked, and left.

She needed too much, she wanted to say to him, and right now, she needed time.


	17. Eventually

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Eventually  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance, Friendship, Family  
**Words:** 1,744  
**Notes:** Chapter Fifteen. Not proofread. Hector strikes me as the sort of man who would subconsciously think that if he loves someone, it makes them somebody special—and he might have a hard time separating the fact that just because he cares about them doesn't mean other people do. Then again, I also imagine that Hector feels love pretty damn strong—like when he loves someone, he really loves them. I don't feel he loves anybody in a half-assed manner.

* * *

Hector was not a patient man. He hadn't had the patience for numbers classes as a child, and he hadn't had the patience to be taught any traditional methods of fighting as a teenager, and as an adult, he didn't have the patience to sit still and wait while someone else made up their mind.

Farina had practically been crying as she'd run from his room the afternoon before, and he hadn't managed to sleep since. He'd tried to apologize—or at least figure out what the problem was—a few hours after it happened, but her room had been locked and he knew that forcing the door open would only make things worse.

To deal with his impatience, he paced. He paced back and forth and back and forth, around tables, or the stables, or maybe even up and down the castle corridors. He thought that maybe he ought to know what the problem is, ought to have known _immediately_ why she'd gone from moaning his name, acting like she enjoyed what he was doing, to trembling like she thought he was going to hurt her.

But he didn't.

He didn't understand any of it. And the more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became.

His morning meetings had been spent pacing, his hands clenching and unclenching as he walked.

It wasn't until the afternoon that he had free time again, and he spent it outside, pacing around the garden.

What was it she'd shouted at him just before she'd run? That she wasn't staying forever? How long had she been staying at the castle? Not very long, he knew, but after the first couple of days it had felt like she belonged there—that she'd always been there—that all he ever had to do to see her was walk down the hall from his own rooms and knock on her door.

Her door? How quickly it had changed from being Serra's door—and he'd thought of it as Serra's door for many, many years.

He stopped pacing as a thought struck him: was she planning to leave?

He knew that she was—but that thought had seemed so far away, so _eventual_. She would eventually leave, but it wasn't like she'd leave any time soon, like tomorrow or this week, or even next week—or next month. Maybe next year. Or in five years.

Well, _fuck_, he thought. She couldn't leave—he didn't want her to!

But she could, and he knew it. She could walk right out of the castle and never look back. Murphy would be treated well, especially with Lilina spoiling him rotten and making him fat off of his favorite foods. Nothing _tied_ her to the castle anymore. She owned nothing, and she didn't owe anybody anything.

He wished she did, though. He wished he had some way to drag up that 20,000-gold fee he'd paid her years ago, wished he could say she'd never finished paying it off and now she had to stay, just for a little while longer, to keep him company—to pay that off.

Those thoughts were selfish and foolish, and as much as Hector wished they weren't, he knew better than to tie Farina to a place she didn't want to be. Still, she'd moaned his name just the day before, moaned it like she'd wanted him to fuck her—and then she was gone, so suddenly, as if she realized right in the middle of it all that they were doing something wrong.

Maybe it was wrong—a little bit. Maybe they should wait for something like marriage, or at least an engagement. But she hadn't said that. She'd said she wouldn't be around forever.

So she was leaving, then. Or she was dying of something, but he was certain she would have told him about that. He was certain she couldn't hide something like an illness from him.

But he was suddenly worried about it—because it made too much sense.

He started back for the castle immediately.

There was no way in hell he was going to let her leave without telling him the truth. She didn't owe him her love or her body or anything like that, but as his friend she did owe him an explanation.

* * *

As he entered his rooms, intending to have a servant call for Farina, he saw, in his receiving chamber, a familiar figure.

"Matthew!" he said, sounding surprised.

The older man turned around and gave him a tired smile. "Hey, Lord Hector," he said. "I've come to report to you on Bern and their latest shenanigans."

"I'm glad you're back."

"That's awfully sentimental of you, milord." It was Matthew's turn to look surprised.

"Yes, well…whatever. What information did you manage to get?"

"The full report will be given to you tomorrow. I thought I should come and see you to let you know I'd made it back all right and all that." He leaned back against the couch he sat on. "Things are looking bad, as expected. I don't know that I can go back without _really_ risking my neck."

"That bad?"

"Worse than the trouble with Laus. Laus can't do much on their own, but I think Bern is figuring out that there are people in the Lycian Alliance who might like to, erm, switch sides, so to speak."

Hector frowned. Oh, great. Of course he would get to deal with this. "Blast," he said, sighing. "I guess we really should have let Zephiel die, huh."

It wasn't a question, and Matthew didn't answer it. He just gave a shake of his head and said, "We couldn't have known about it. Anyway, I'll finish my report in the morning after some rest."

"That'll be fine." He wasn't sure he really wanted to read about all the terrible things Bern had been up to, or at least suspected of.

"I'd ask you if anything had happened since I was last here," Matthew said while lifting one eyebrow, "but I heard the kitchen staff talking."

"Oh?" No way did he know already. He'd been back less than a few hours, and that was exaggerating the estimate.

"Yeah, they were talking about how Lord Hector brought in a poor girl and was giving her special treatment. Made _me_ raise my eyebrows, that's for sure. And for a second, I had to think about who it could possibly be."

Hector opened his mouth as if to interject, but Matthew ploughed on.

"No, no, let me finish. You see, milord, at first I thought maybe Lady Lyn had come back, but then I realized that there'd be no conventional way or reason for her to do that—to come so far. Caelin is closer, and a subset of Ostia, anyway. Not to mention that everyone knows her, there. So that left only a few options—someone we fought with during the campaign against Nergal, definitely, but that didn't narrow it down much. The way they were talking, this girl you pulled in was someone off the streets of Ostia, which meant, of course, that it could only be one person: Farina. Did she finally decide to tell you she was here in Ostia?"

"Wait—what?" Hector's head was spinning. "What do you mean, _finally decide_? You knew she was here?!"

"Naturally. I know a great many things."

Hector could have punched him—could have, but didn't. Instead, he bit his tongue for a good, long moment. "And you didn't tell me."

"She looked like—" Matthew paused, but resumed again, treading carefully with his words. "Forgive me, milord. I didn't think you'd want to know—and she was on hard times. I assumed she did not want to be found."

He might have yelled at Matthew over it, but sometimes a calm, quiet Hector was more fearsome. "You assumed right. I found her on accident. She ran from me at first, too."

"I don't blame her," he said with a strained smile.

"I brought her back here. I intend to let her stay here."

"For how long?"

"What kind of a fucking question is that?" he asked before he could stop himself. Not very mature of him to speak so forcefully, and not very dignified, either.

"The natural one, of course. She won't stay forever."

"And why not?" he demanded. "Why can't she?"

"Why _won't_ she, you mean." Matthew stood. "You should ask her about that. Because I won't pretend I know everything about her, and I don't like giving advice to someone when I'm not completely sure that I'm telling them the right thing. But think about it: she's nobody—"

"She's—"

"She's _nobody_, Lord Hector. She's less than the kitchen staff! And they know it!" He took a step toward the door. "She might be somebody to you, but she knows her station in life and _she always has_."

"I could marry her now," he said. "I could. Rosanne is gone, and there is an heir already."

"But what _keeps_ her here? You practically had to drag her to the castle, didn't you?"

"No," he said, but he knew it was a lie, so he retracted it with: "She only came because I promised to care for her pegasus."

It hurt to say.

"It's rare when she does something for herself." Matthew sighed. "Just talk to her. Communication is important. Don't wait until it's too late to say what you know you need to say. If you wait for the perfect time you might run _out_ of time."

Then Matthew left, leaving Hector staring after him feeling betrayed and hurt and angry.

He was right, though. He knew the stupid spy was right. Matthew had waited too long, and he'd lost Leila. That had been years ago, and just as Hector had never forgotten about Farina, Matthew hadn't forgotten about Leila. At least Hector had been lucky enough to find Farina picking rocks out of Murphy's hooves.

He didn't know what he'd do if he'd found her propped up against a tree, dead. He might have cried—to fleetingly imagine that there was still a chance, that there was still time, only to watch it slip away.

He left to find Farina, deciding that finding her himself would be better than having a servant call for her.

Her room was empty and unlocked, so he set off to look in all of the other likely places she might be.


	18. Stay

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Stay  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance, Friendship, Family  
**Words:** 818  
**Notes:** Chapter Sixteen. Not proofread. Also a very short chapter.

* * *

Farina wanted to apologize for overreacting, but she was too embarrassed or maybe _prideful_ to just find Hector to tell him. She didn't think she could have helped her reaction, but she ought to have stayed and talked. Everything was always so much clearer in retrospect, though, and she hated that. Why was it always so much easier to see _after_ the fact?

He'd been so damned understanding about it, too—probably willing to talk it out. And she'd just left. Bolted, like she had when she saw him again for the first time in fourteen long, _long_ years.

The difficult part would be explaining herself to him. Sometimes she didn't even understand why she did what she did, or why the stupidest thing would make her feel anxious or frightened.

She'd gone from having a good time to panicking, almost in an instant. Hector deserved some kind of explanation for that. It wasn't his fault, not really. She'd wanted him to keep going, had moaned out his name.

And then it hit her, quite suddenly, that it was all so very _temporary_. Like everything else in her life.

And she didn't want that for Hector.

All or nothing was what she wanted.

Needed. It was what she _needed_.

And that was sad, because she knew it was too much to ever expect, to ever even hope for.

But Hector deserved to know what she wanted out of him—what she needed. Even if he refused it all, or _had_ to refuse it all, even if she knew nothing would ever come of it. It was still better to know.

She wouldn't hurt him again by leaving without letting him know how she felt.

But when she went to his rooms, she could hear him talking to someone—quite fervently, though she couldn't catch all the words.

So she headed to the stables instead.

* * *

The biggest thought, at the forefront of her mind as she headed to the stables, was that Hector had said he was being pressured into remarrying. For an heir. Even if he wanted to marry her, she'd never be able to give him that—not a son, not another daughter. Nothing. She could give him nothing.

She stopped thinking about it—refused to let herself dwell on things she couldn't have—and opened the doors to the stables to find Lilina inside singing some kind of silly song to Murphy.

She looked up when Farina approached.

"He really seems to like you," Farina remarked, noticing the way Murphy watched Lilina with half-lidded, trusting eyes.

"The carrots were the trick," she said, grinning. "They're _definitely_ his favorite food. I tried apples—which Odysseus prefers—but he knocked it out of my hand."

"Just don't try giving him _ale_," said Farina with a smile. "Your father tried it once, years ago."

"What? You don't give ale to horses! Er…pegasi!"

"I scolded him for it."

"Ohh, I bet he didn't like that."

"He tried to defend his decision to let Murphy drink a whole tankard of ale, if that's what you mean."

Lilina giggled. "You guys have known each other for a while, huh?"

"Almost fifteen years."

"That's like, twice as old as I am."

"Yeah. I used to work for him, many years ago."

"With Murphy?"

"Murphy definitely helped."

"Tell me a story about it."

Farina hesitated, but finally said, "All right. One time, right in the middle of a battle, your father broke a brand-new weapon."

"An axe," she said. "He likes to spar with axes."

"Right. So he had to fight with his fists."

"Like a _peasant_." Lilina's eyes were wide.

"It turned out, he was pretty good at it. But I watched his back just in case. We helped each other out—made it back to camp safely in the end. Your father took a pretty hard hit, but he acted like it didn't even matter…"

"That sounds like him," Lilina said with a roll of her eyes and an exaggerated sigh. "This one time, he smashed his hand in the door—and after he cursed really loudly for like, ten minutes, he just said," and she tried to imitate his deeper voice by lowering her own, "_It's not so bad_."

"It wasn't so bad."

Hector's voice made both Farina and Lilina jump, but he didn't waste any time laughing or grinning or even telling Lilina to leave.

He looked right at Farina, and she felt her stomach twist anxiously.

"Farina," he said, calmly. "I want you to stay."

"But—"

He ploughed on, ignoring her attempts to cut into his words, to stop him. "Here. With me. I want _you_ to stay _here_ with _me_.

Lilina looked between them, bewildered, but thankfully said nothing.

"For how long?" Farina ventured to ask. "For another week? A month? Hector, I—"

"Forever," he blurted out in a rush before he could stop himself.


	19. Only One Thing

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Only One Thing  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance, Friendship, Family  
**Words: **1,121**  
Notes:** Chapter Seventeen. Not proofread. Bonus points if you catch the song lyrics inside the chapter—and not the title song lyrics, either.

* * *

The way Farina's mouth opened and closed told him that she didn't know how to respond to his question-answer.

After a long moment, she managed to stammer out a, "W-Well," but nothing ever came after it, and she clamped her mouth shut, eyes shifting to the side a little.

He followed her gaze and saw Lilina sitting there, looking confused. Oops. He probably ought to have told her to leave. Not that it mattered. Not that he'd be ashamed of loving Farina, of admitting it aloud, to her, in front of his daughter. He wasn't. He'd never been ashamed of it. Maybe he ought to have been more vocal about it in the past, though.

"Lilina," he said gently, after a moment. "Go inside."

"But Fath—"

"I said to go inside." His voice was firmer the second time, but he wasn't angry. She was probably dying of curiosity, like he had been when he's discovered his father having an affair. Not that he cared—he hardly knew the man. "I'll talk to you later."

She hesitated, but put her things away and was gone up to her room before he could order her to leave again.

Finally, Farina managed a complete sentence. "What do _mean_, forever?"

What _did_ he mean? He hadn't thought at all before he'd thrown that word out at her like it meant nothing, or maybe like it meant so much to him that he could contain it no longer.

"I mean forever," he said.

"You want me to stay forever."

"Yes."

"In that room at the end of the hall. Like some kind of pet, or—"

"What? No! You know I love you—"

"I don't believe you."

"I've said it ten damn times at least. What's so hard to believe about it?"

She shuddered, but bit her lip and didn't reply for a long, painful moment. "They're words," she said at last. "Just words."

"What's wrong with words?" He was a little insulted by that—as if his saying it hadn't meant anything.

"I need _more_ than that."

"More than…?"

"More than words, yes." She took a deep breath.

And Hector was stumped. What was that supposed to mean? "So when you fainted on the battlefield and I carried you in, that wasn't enough?" Farina tried to speak, but he cut her off when he continued: "And when I sat up with you and listened to you tell me about all the things that happened to you—just listened, mind, didn't even lay a hand on you or _anything_—that wasn't enough? That wasn't more than words?"

"That was _fourteen years ago_."

He felt his temper snap a little, right along with hers. "Who cares?" he asked. "Fourteen years ago, it was still you and me—it's not like we're completely different people!"

"We've changed," she said, quietly, forcing his temper to fizzle out almost instantly. Dammit. She always had managed to have such an effect on him. It was too bad she didn't realize it.

"Not _that_ much," he said. "We're not as quick to anger these days, but I'm still me, and you're still you. We're still us."

"But _different_."

"You're still the same person I knew during the war," he said, and took a step closer to her. "And I still love you, maybe more than I did then."

"Why?" she asked. "Why? I don't understand." She looked almost ready to cry.

"Why not?" He was so confused. "I have to have a reason to love someone?"

"Yes." Her answer was so quick, it was like she'd known he was going to ask her the question. "Back then I loved you because you were strong. You were fun. And capable—dependable."

"Nobody else thought so," he said, almost touched. If she'd told him that back then, he'd have kissed her senseless. He still wanted to. "Do you still feel that way?"

"No," she said, and his heart dropped for a moment. "But they're still true, just…in different ways. You're not stomping all over camp yelling at Matthew for the dumbest crap anymore. And you're not hefting an axe half your size over your shoulder at the front lines, either."

"I see."

"At that time in my life, I really needed someone strong and capable and fun, to help me relax."

"You still need to relax," he told her.

She gave a small, almost unnoticeable, smile. "Hector, I still really like you."

"But you don't love me."

She hesitated. "I don't _know_ you. Not anymore."

"I'm the same person," he insisted.

"No you're not. You had to drop everything and build a new reputation for yourself. You gave away the things you loved."

"And one of them was you," he added, quietly.

"Yes."

"Have you not forgiven me for that?"

"I forgave you a long time ago," she said. "It was for the best. But you married—you married someone you didn't even share a bed with unless you _had_ to. And you run a country."

"A canton," he corrected.

"Still. And you have a daughter."

He didn't know what to say to that. Was Lilina a problem for her? Because _she'd_ wanted to have a daughter?

"She's amazing," she said, gently. "I really like her. But you're a father now. You're not the same person you were fourteen years ago."

"Some things are different," he said. "But I'm still me."

"Are you?"

"Yes. And you're different, too. After the war, I never thought you'd go so long without speaking to your sisters. I never thought I'd find you hiding right under my nose. Matthew knew you were here, in Ostia, but he never told me, you know. I wanted to break his face for that, but I didn't. That's how I've changed. For the better, I'd like to think."

"And me?"

"Not better or worse," he told her. "Just different. I wish you'd come to me, though."

"I couldn't. You know that."

"See?" he asked. "Still prideful. You're still you."

"Am I?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause, during which he hardly fidgeted at all—he had changed. A little bit.

"Hector," Farina finally began, while he was still thinking of what to say.

"Hm?"

"What do you want from me?"

Such a heavy question. Loaded with implications and expectations and everything in between.

What did he want?

"Only one thing," he responded, almost immediately, before he could stop himself. Before he could save it for a better time.

"And what is that?" She looked nervous.

He looked at her and smiled, almost nervously. "The same thing I've wanted since the day before I found out my brother had died," he told her, carefully. "I want you to be my wife."


	20. Perseverance

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Perseverance  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance, Friendship, Family  
**Words:** 1,335  
**Notes:** Chapter Eighteen. Not proofread. (Do you see the trend here?)

* * *

Farina's immediate reaction to Hector's proposal was to stare, open-mouthed, for a solid thirty seconds before tears started rolling down her face, silently, like they always did when she cried and wasn't hysterical at the same time.

She tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand, and then her arm, but she couldn't.

Hector's face, seen through her wet eyelashes in the dim lighting of the stables, seemed stricken. As if her reaction had been everything he'd never wanted.

"I'm sorry," she finally managed to say, after a while. But she couldn't have told him what she was sorry for—so many stupid things, and probably nothing important at all.

He stepped closer, touched her elbow, cupping it in his palm so gently that it almost made a fresh wave of tears spill over. "What's the matter?" His voice was earnest, concerned, but not angry.

"I don't know." She was honest. Too many things were wrong. With her. "Why would you ask me that?"

"You asked me what I wanted. I told you."

"That's not what you want."

"Don't pretend that _you_ know what _I_ want," he snapped, and had the decency to look guilty afterward. What he said next was calmer: "If it's not what _you_ want, just say so. I'm a grown man. I can handle the word "no" if that's what you mean to say."

"I don't know what I mean to say," she said, unable to keep the confusion out of her voice. "I—I need to think."

"Think?" His voice was incredulous, but tinted with irritation, just like the good old days that hadn't really been good. "What is there to _think_ about? It's a yes or no question—either you want to marry me or you don't."

"I…" She hesitated, fisting the material of her skirt in her hand. "Are you sure that it's what _you_ want?"

"I told you before that I was. I don't just stop loving someone because they're not around, you know!"

"Or because they change?" she asked.

"You haven't changed that much."

"Yes I have."

"No you haven't."

"Yes I have!" she cried, pulling away from him. "Yes I have! I wasn't very respectable back during the war, but at least I had skill! And I could find my own way in the world! Now I'm just—I'm _nobody_, no matter what you say or think!"

"Farina." His sudden grip on her arm was strong, and she fought it automatically before she realized that he didn't mean anything cruel by it. Sometimes she was so stupid. He would never, ever _really_ want her. It didn't make any sense.

"What?"

"That's not your fault. You're somebody. To me."

"_Why_?" The question flew from her mouth before she could stop it. What did he see in her? How could he see anything at all, anymore?

He just paused, tugged her toward the stable doors, and said, "Come with me, up to my study. I have something to show you."

She followed, confused even more than she had been to hear his proposal. She felt bad—no man wanted someone to have to _think_ of an answer to such a question; it was usually such an easy yes/no answer. But for her, she just—she didn't know why it was so hard to answer him definitely either way.

She _wanted_ to say yes, but she felt like that was the wrong answer, like she'd drag him down with it, because she wasn't good enough for a man like him. Not to marry him, no matter how much she wanted to, deep down.

When they reached his study, he pushed her down into a chair and rooted through the desk drawers before he found a leatherbound journal, inside of which there were columns of numbers and letters.

"See this?" Hector asked her, pointing to a row and several columns next to it with numbers scribbled in.

"Yes?" She had no idea what it said, though.

"This contains Mark's records," he told her, and pointed to the far left of the row. "This is your name. Granted, it's written so badly it's hard for me to read, but still. This is you. So one day, I'm out fighting a goddamned war and this woman falls out of the sky and lands next to me. I didn't know this wench from St. Elimine, but there she was, bold as heaven and twice as fucking interesting. She just walks right up to me, asks if I'm heading the party, and then says she'll help us out…for twenty thousand goddamned gold."

She blushed, embarrassed by her actions of so many years ago. "I didn't think you'd actually pay it," she said, almost timidly.

"It doesn't matter. You had the guts to demand—not _ask_, demand!—twenty thousand gold for helping us out. I was impressed. And then you worked so hard to earn it, too—not that I condone the way you worked yourself almost to death, but still. Perseverance. It's admirable. _I_ admired it."

"But—"

"I'm not done. After you had everyone thinking you were a money-grubbing gold-digger or something, when you thought nobody was looking…you started giving money away. And you didn't think I knew about that, did you? But I did. Because Matthew told me."

"They just needed the money more than me," she tried to say.

But he shook his head. "That's not the point. The point is that you're someone. To me. And to the people that you helped. That money you gave Dorcas saved his wife's life. You don't think that _he_ thinks that you're somebody? Or what about your sisters?"

"Fine," she agreed. "I'm somebody. But I'm not _enough_ of a somebody."

"For what?"

"For you."

She felt so stupid saying it, like she was fishing for compliments—but she wasn't.

And to her surprise, instead of arguing with her, Hector said, "What do you mean?"

It all poured out, then, in nonsensical lines of words—she couldn't give him any more children, she couldn't be of any use to him whatsoever, she could barely sew, she couldn't cook, she didn't know anything about his day-to-day life.

To which he answered, very carefully, that he didn't want any more children, that he wasn't looking for a marchioness but a _wife_, a _companion_, and that domestic hooplah didn't really mean anything to him because the wife of a marquess, even a second one, had servants who could do everything for her, if she wanted.

"Hector," she began, "I need—"

But he stopped her with a quiet, "I know. You need love, and stability, and I love you, and I want to marry you. I don't understand what the problem is."

"I don't either," she said, sounding pathetic.

She wanted to marry him. She did. She could sleep in his arms and kiss him good morning and spend her days doing whatever she wanted, wearing nice clothes but never having to be an acting marchioness, because she was the second wife, the one nobody would ever remember or think about, or link with Hector's name when Lilina spoke to her children about her parents.

"Farina," he said, slowly, and when she looked up at him, he gave her a bit of a smile. "I'm going to ask you a question."

She nodded.

"Why did you run off? Not fourteen years ago—I mean…from me. When you seemed to be enjoying yourself. Did you think I was just messing with you? That I didn't mean anything by it?"

"I didn't—" she faltered. "I… Hector, I just…thought that maybe that was as good as it would get, and it was nice, but I need more than that. And I can't _expect_—"

"I'm sorry that you thought that. It meant something. To me."

She just nodded.

"Was that the only reason?"

"For what?"

"That you ran off."

"No."

"What is it?"

She twisted her hands in her skirt again before she answered, embarrassed.


	21. Two First Times

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Two First Times  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance, Friendship, Family  
**Words:** 2,087  
**Notes:** Chapter Nineteen. Not proofread. Sex in this chapter. Only one more chapter an an epilogue after this.

* * *

Hector had always viewed Farina as a confident sort of woman. Confident in herself, in her abilities, in all of her achievements. But this Farina, sitting in front of him in a chair, twisting her hands in her skirt, was not confident at all.

She was nervous. Almost timid, even. Years ago, he'd fallen in love with her confidence. Things were different now. She was right—she had changed.

And so had he. He had the responsibilities of a marquess, and of a father, too.

But he still loved her. And deep down, he knew that she was still a confident person. She just felt that she had nothing left to be confident about, having lost her livelihood—poor Murphy, stabled out in a barn.

He waited, patiently, for her answer to his question about the other reason she'd run off. It couldn't be just love—just a lack of it, or feeling that he just wanted to have sex with her. There had to be more to it than that, even if it was something really silly.

But it wasn't silly at all.

"Because I've never…" She swallowed, thickly, and took a deep breath. She didn't even look at him when she blurted it out: "I've never had sex with someone. Not—not consensually."

He meant to say something like, "It's always consensual if it's sex. They call nonconsensual sex something else."

But in the end, he stood there with his mouth open, staring at her. Her face, and then ears, and finally neck flushed a deep red. She was embarrassed, probably by his silence. But he didn't know what to say to her.

"You were afraid?" he asked, finally, to buy himself time. He knew she had been. Why else would she have sat up so suddenly, bolting from the room with the excuse that she wouldn't be around forever? Not that her excuse wasn't valid, because it was. He had known it couldn't be the only reason, though. Not for her. It wasn't believable enough that Farina would go that far only to bolt at that moment—so suddenly, without any warning at all.

"Yes."

He hated that thought—that someone he cared about would be afraid of him. Of him! It only made sense that Farina would be afraid, though, after everything she'd been through.

"I would never hurt you," he said.

She didn't respond.

"I need a moment," he added, to break the silence, and when Farina acknowledged that, he moved into his bedchamber, and sat on the edge of his bed, just thinking. The door was open—he'd never try to shut Farina out, not even figuratively.

But her words forced insecurities into his mind. He was a confident man about most things—confident that he could protect others on or off the battlefield, confident that he was a loyal friend, and confident in bed. Suddenly, he felt less confident regarding sex.

Rosanne had hated it, and he'd hurt her a few times. He hadn't meant to, but it had happened. He'd apologized, and she'd said not to worry about it, but that didn't mean he'd been able to forget that he'd done it—that he'd hurt someone he was supposed to protect.

And to be the first—the first after the horrible few days that Farina had dealt with… He didn't know how he felt about that, but he wasn't confident. He wondered if he should be, if he ought to believe that he could make everything better, because he could show her that sex didn't have to hurt, or be painful, that she could do it with someone who loved her and it could be _great_.

But what if it wasn't?

What if he _did_ hurt her? What if she cried—like Rosanne had?

He didn't know how long he'd sat there, maybe an hour. Farina came to him, sat down next to him on the bed, put an arm around him like _he_ was the one who was scared, and not her.

"I'm sorry," she said, quietly. "I shouldn't have run."

"You can't help it if you feel scared about something," he said, and hoped she couldn't tell that maybe he was a little, too.

"I shouldn't be afraid of you, though," she said, sounding more like her old self—embarrassed to be wrong, but confident that she knew what she was talking about.

"You couldn't help it, though. Your only other experience with it was bad."

She just put her head on his shoulder. "I'm still sorry."

"Next time, just…stay and talk it over." That would be easier. It might have saved them this entire mess.

"Okay." And then, a moment later, she asked, sounding more confident, "Did you want to try again?"

Her words startled him. "What?" And then he backpedaled. "What's brought this on?"

She blushed but smiled at him. "Well, it _was_ nice. I mean…it felt good."

He grinned, unable to resist turning his head and pulling her against him in a kiss. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, and straddled his lap, lips going straight for his neck, just behind his ear—the only place she could really reach with all of his clothes still on.

This time, he knew exactly how they'd gotten to his room, and when their clothes started to fall to the floor in a haphazard pile, he tried to reassure her with just a look, or a smile, or something—something small to let her know he'd stop if she wanted him to.

But she didn't seem to want him to stop. If anything, she was encouraging, picking up quickly on things he seemed to like, even if he showed very few outward signs of it. She was a fast learner and she built up confidence quickly—as soon as she realized he liked something she did, she'd do it again to be sure, and with twice the energy, too.

When he dropped the last piece of her clothing onto the floor behind him, he just looked at her for a while. At her face. And he kissed her once, softly, fingers smoothing back her short hair.

"Do you trust me?" he asked, trying not to moan at the feeling of her body beneath him.

"Yeah." Her response was almost breathless, and she pressed herself against him.

He couldn't hold in the moan any longer, and he moaned against her neck, his lips already working their way down to her breasts, where he toyed with her a while longer, making her squirm beneath him out of desire or excitement or maybe something else.

Finally he touched her, to make sure that she was ready for him—_very_ ready, because he definitely didn't want to hurt her. She pushed herself against his hand and moaned low in her throat, and he stroked her a few more times before he pulled away and kissed her again, as if to reassure her—or maybe himself.

"It'll hurt a little at first, probably," he murmured, almost in a hurry. He didn't know for sure. She'd had sex before, but it was so long ago he thought that it might hurt again this time, too. He didn't want to hurt her. But he supposed he had to. A little. But he swore to himself that he'd make it up to her in the future.

She just nodded a little, but tensed, which was bad. If she was tense, it would hurt _more_.

"Relax," he said, hand rubbing her side.

She gave him a tentative smile and after a moment, took a deep breath. "Okay," she said, and relaxed a little. Not completely, but enough.

He was careful, though it wasn't easy. It had been a while for him—not since Rosanne had died—and his body wanted to fuck her right away. But he couldn't. This time—their _first_ time—long overdue as it was, would have to be slow, and gentle, and sweet. But that was all right. Because he'd do anything she wanted, and right now, he thought, she _needed_ him to make love to her—she didn't need fucked up against the wall. She needed to know he loved her and was willing to be patient and careful. Because, he thought, nobody had ever been gentle with her before, in any sense of the word.

But he would be.

So he waited until she had adjusted to him, until she told him that she was all right, and even then, he went slowly, as slowly as he could possibly manage.

And still he came too fast, thrusting hard when he finally finished, her name rolling off his tongue in a long moan. But he only took a moment to catch his breath, his head resting on her shoulder. "Hold on," he said, when a minute or two passed, "I'm not done. Not yet."

Because he had to finish her, too. Or it wasn't fair. Or it was selfish. And he didn't like being selfish—hadn't liked never finishing Rosanne even when he thought maybe she'd been close.

Sliding a hand between her legs, he stroked her, gently at first, until she'd gotten used to it, and then he went faster, and rubbed harder, until she couldn't help but cry out because she was so close. When she finally came, hips bucking up out of instinct, he smiled, and kept rubbing her until she'd fallen from her climax.

When he settled down next to her, he kissed her face, putting an arm around her to find that she was still trembling a little.

"Hector," she murmured, turning toward him to press her face against his chest. She didn't say anything else, just that—just his name. For some reason, he thought it was a lot more touching to hear it like that than when he'd finished her. Something about it was more intimate, maybe even sweet.

Selfishly, he wanted her to say how it was for her, but he thought he might already know, and he didn't want to push her, not after her first time.

So he just held her, kissed her hair, and had to force himself not to tell her that he loved her, even though he did—and it wasn't because she'd slept with him.

"Get some rest," he told her, but he found that he didn't have to—she'd already fallen asleep.

He stayed there for a while, just holding her, enjoying it. It was nice to be able to do it after wanting to for so long, and he wished, wholeheartedly, that he could have done it fourteen years earlier.

But maybe it was better to have waited. They had both mellowed out and weren't quick to anger, not like they had been, and they were mature enough to try and work things out, and, he hoped, they would only get better at it with time.

They didn't know one another as well as some others might have—as well as Eliwood and Ninian had known each other when they had been married—but they had time to get to know one another, and neither one of them would live forever, anyway. But he thought they'd do fine—he didn't need kids, or a wife to help him work. He just needed someone to be there, to listen to him if he needed to talk, someone to hold, someone to tell him about their day… And Farina could be that someone. He wanted her to be. She could pick up training again if she wanted—he had some knights who could use her advice, that was for sure!—or if she just wanted to walk in the gardens, or ride the horses, or take care of Murphy…it didn't matter. He just wanted her to be there, to be around, because seeing her was so nice.

Eventually he got out of bed and pulled on his pants again to finish some paperwork and wish Lilina a good night. When he returned to his rooms, Farina had rolled over, taking up most of his bed by herself.

She stirred when he got into bed with her, but to her mumbled, "Hmm?" he only suggested that she go back to sleep, which she did, curled up against his side, hogging the blankets all to herself, which made him grin.

He fell asleep looking forward to waking up the next morning, because it would be her face he saw right away. And in that moment, he wanted that more than anything.


	22. Yes

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** Yes  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance, Friendship, Family  
**Words:** 516  
**Notes:** Chapter Twenty. Super short chapter. There is an epilogue after this.

* * *

She awoke to a half-remembered dream of the war, and for a moment, she worried that it was still going on, that somehow, she'd skipped into the future in her dreams, and that the reality was that the fourteen years she thought happened, had been constructed by her mind, a casual reminder that she did precious few things right. Even in her dreams, it seemed.

But when she breathed in deep, she smelled Hector—or at least the things she associated with him, now: parchment and ink, sweat and leather.

When she turned so that she could see his face, his hand clenched a little against her side.

She wanted to go back to sleep, to curl up against him and just smell him and feel him and enjoy it for everything it was…but she couldn't. It was too nice. Too perfect. What if she closed her eyes and woke in that stable again, at dawn for another day of work? What if it all _was_ in her head—Lilina's name, Hector's arm over her?

She was afraid of losing it. Of losing him.

She'd never felt so strongly about another person before. She half-expected to lose them to battles or illness anyway, but to lose someone because it was all imagined was worse. Unexpected. Terrifying.

So Farina watched Hector sleep. She could just barely see his face in the moonlight that streamed through the window and landed in a patch over the foot of the bed, but she knew what he looked like. She could see the shadows and filled in the blanks—the tiny, almost unnoticeable scar that ran down the side of his chin, the slant of his eyebrows, the shape of his nose.

He stirred after sunrise and pulled her against him, kissing her face before he settled again, intent on sleeping in, she thought.

But she wasn't going to let him.

"Hector," she murmured, her hand stroking the side of his face until he opened his eyes.

He didn't smile at her. He just looked at her for a long moment, and finally, he said, "I love you."

"I know." She wrapped her arms around him to just hug him, tightly. "I love you, too. And I—Hector…"

He pushed her away and tilted her chin up so that she was looking right at him.

A little embarrassed, which was stupid considering he'd made love to her the evening prior, she met his gaze. "Ask me again."

For a moment, he was lost. She could see the confusion on his face, and she was just about to clarify when he understood, and smiled, so widely she had to wonder at why she'd never seen him smile like that before.

"Marry me," he said, softly, and brushed her hair back.

It wasn't a question but it brought tears to her eyes, almost, with the way he said it. She managed a nod and a quiet, "Yes," before he leaned close, but instead of kissing her lips, he kissed her hair, and he just held her for a long, long time.


	23. Epilogue

**Title:** More Than Words  
**Chapter Title:** An Ending is a Beginning  
**Characters:** Hector/Farina, mention of others  
**Genre:** Romance, Friendship, Family  
**Words: **1,623  
**Notes:** Epilogue. Takes place a little more than two years after the last chapter. More notes at the end.

* * *

Hector found Farina in Lilina's room.

"Hi," she said, with a smile, her fingers buried in his daughter's hair as she braided it for the night.

"My girls," he said with a grin. Lilina rolled her eyes, too old now for such silliness, he supposed. Ten-year-olds were confusing.

"May I have a pegasus, Father?"

So grown up at only ten years old. He felt sad. But, "No. No pegasus."

Farina's lip twitched a little in amusement. He would bet anything that she'd tried to tell Lilina that he'd never let her get another pegasus. They were trouble. And he didn't like the idea of his daughter flying up a billion feet into the air any more than he liked the idea of his wife doing it.

"But why not?" Lilina complained, pouting and sounding like a child again.

He just raised one eyebrow as he kissed her, and then his wife, on the head. "Because the fall from a horse is at least _fixable_."

Lilina rolled her eyes but didn't argue with him further.

"Did you need something?" Farina asked.

"I've come to steal you away."

Lilina made a face. "Gross," she said, and Hector wondered how long it would be before she changed her mind about that.

Farina tied off Lilina's braid and pulled back the blankets so that she could get into bed.

"Still too old for stories?" Hector asked.

"Yes."

"A shame." He leaned over her to kiss her hair again. "Good night."

"Good night, Father."

Farina kissed her, too, and they left, heading back to their own room.

"Don't worry," she said, taking his hand and holding onto it for the short walk back. "It's just a phase. She'll probably get tired of pretending to be a grown up."

"I can't believe she wants a pegasus."

"I tried to discourage her."

"With what, stories of how great flying is?"

Farina grinned. "No, I told her about all of the hazards."

"Let me guess, she thought it was fascinating."

"Yes." She followed him into their receiving room and fell onto the couch, smiling up at him.

He couldn't resist that tilt of her head. He leaned over the couch to kiss her.

"Why don't you get her a white pony, instead?" she suggested when he pulled away. "Have a great craftsman make some tack that looks pretty, too. That's a close enough compromise."

"Do you think so?" He wasn't so sure. A white pony wasn't nearly as good as a pegasus, even if he didn't particularly like the animals. He doubted he ever would again—Murphy had been the only one, and he was dead a year, now.

"Her birthday's in a couple of months. It might be nice."

"True." He came around to the front of the couch and sat down before he tipped over and laid his head in Farina's lap. "Matthew's not back, yet."

"It's been months," she whispered. "No word at all?"

"None."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive." He sighed, and covered his face, shaking his head a little even as her hands started to run through his hair. "I don't think he ever will."

"Do you think…?"

She left her sentence hanging, but he knew what she was suggesting. "Yeah. I should never have let him go back to Bern."

She paused in her ministrations and sighed. "That's a shame."

"We all die eventually, you know."

"I know." Her younger sister had died only a few months after their small wedding. Florina was at the wedding, but just for a few hours. Then she'd left. That was the last Farina had seen or heard from her.

The note from Fiora had arrived later, short and hastily written.

That had been a bad day. Lilina had been teaching Farina to write, and since the letter was for her, she had tried to read it by herself. A struggle. Certain she had read it wrong, she'd made Hector read it to her later, and she'd been inconsolable for days.

Killed in battle. Honorable. At least, Hector thought so.

Farina had him write to Fiora to invite her to live with them, in the castle, but Fiora politely refused. Farina still sent a letter every month asking again, certain that eventually, Fiora would accept and be safe.

"Me, too," he added, quietly, tilting his head back to look up at her. "I'll die in battle, supposedly."

"That's just superstition."

"You weren't there," he told her, carefully. "I think it's true."

"But you could go to war thirty years from now."

"I don't think war is that far off."

She stopped. Tensed. "Did you learn anything new?"

"No. But Bern… There's something going on there. Something big. Bigger than Nergal and his damned dragons, I bet. A few more years, and I think war will be inevitable."

"If they did away with Matthew," she sighed, "you're probably right."

"I'll put it off," he said, softly. "As long as I can."

"Why?"

"I don't want to leave you." Because of death or for any other reason.

She turned toward him on the couch, lying down with him in her arms. It was so silly it made him laugh.

"What?" she asked, almost defensively. "I want to."

"Okay."

"You know," she added, after a moment, still just holding onto him like he was something precious, "I guess it doesn't matter when we die, anyway."

"Why's that?"

"I don't know." She sounded embarrassed. "I could still die before you."

"Don't you dare."

"I'd like to try and see you stop me."

"I don't want to lose more of my family," he said.

"I might let you go first. But then I want to be able to go right after."

"I would be okay with that, too."

"So if you go to war," she said, a half-question, "will you fight?"

"You know me," he admitted. "I'll lead it."

She stilled for a moment, and squeezed him tight, resting her chin on his shoulder. "Hector?"

"Mm?"

"When that day comes, I'm going to fight with you."

He hated the idea. "No."

"You can't tell me that," she bristled. "What if all you needed all along was someone to watch your back?"

"What if you _die_?" he asked. "What will I do, then?"

"You'll come back to your daughter."

"I want to come home to you, too." He pulled out of her embrace and sat up, taking both of her hands in his, just squeezing them tight.

"Maybe neither one of us will make it back," she suggested.

"Farina," he said, "I don't want you on the battlefield again."

"And I don't want _you_ on it, either, but I know you'll go, and I can't stop you, so the least you could do would be to let me fight with you, like we did that one time—I know what you do with brand new weapons. You break them!"

He could almost have cried at the thought of war, of fighting again, with Farina, and of the very real possibility that he wouldn't make it back alive—that neither one of them would.

"All right," he finally said, and pulled her hands to his face to kiss them. "It's a deal."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, resting her head on his shoulder afterward. "It's better not to be separated."

"We haven't been apart a _day_ since we were married," he joked, but he loved it and she knew it. When he had to leave the castle, she went with him. Not being an acting marchioness had its perks.

"Good," she said, and got to her feet, pulling him after. "Come on, I know you're tired."

"I am," he admitted. He was always tired. It came with the job. He had worried, a few times, that Farina would think he had grown tired of her, when he hadn't tried to fuck her or even make love to her. But when he expressed his concern, she'd just laughed at it and told him that she loved _him_, and if he was tired, that was all right.

When they had dressed for bed, she leaned over him and kissed his face, smoothing back his hair. "Just talk?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "About anything."

Some men would scoff at the idea that Marquess Ostia liked his wife to just sit with him, to talk and touch his hair until he fell asleep, but sometimes it was the only thing that helped. And it was nice, that she cared enough to do it, that she'd never once laughed at him for liking it, that she seemed to enjoy it almost as much as he did.

It was more intimate than fucking, sometimes.

"All right, so there was once there was this really irritating mercenary…"

His lip twitched in amusement. "You were not irritating," he said.

"Yes I was. So anyway, this mercenary needed money badly, so when she heard rumors of a war, she flew there as fast as she could on her faithful pegasus, Murphy, and found the poor, hapless leader of the good guys."

"I wasn't hapless!" he laughed, reaching up behind him to pinch her nose.

She laughed and swatted at him. "Shut up and listen to my story!"

He did. Part of it, anyway. He fell asleep five minutes in, to the sound of her voice and her fingers combing gently through his hair.

And when he awoke in the middle of the night, for just a moment, Farina was lying next to him, just watching.

"Marry me," he said, finger brushing over her cheek.

"I already did."

She took his hand and just held it, and he fell back to sleep that way, with his hand clasped tightly in hers.

* * *

_All you have to do is close your eyes_  
_And just reach out your hands.  
And touch me; hold me close,  
Don't ever let me go.  
More than words  
Is all I ever needed you to show;  
Then you wouldn't have to say  
That you love me,  
_'_Cause I'd already know._

"More Than Words"—Extreme

* * *

**Further notes:** Special thanks to Natural Frequency for helping me out with the beginning of this story; without her, this would not have ended up anything like this. Kender (for being my super inspiring best bud, knocking sense into me, and generally just her constant, "Hey, you know what would be good? More of MTW!"), and Thinkaman22, Sentury, and DPT24 for their wonderful reviews, not to mention everyone else who encouraged me to keep this thing going.

Some questions I've received about this story that I'll address here:

**1.) At the root of things, is it always my fault?** Uhm, Kender says yes. So it must be true.

**2.) Why did you make Hector marry someone he didn't know?** At the core of my reasoning, it's because I imagine that Hector is the type of man to love one person and love them half to death. It just takes him longer to find that person than most people. He's pretty thick.

**3.) Did Hector care for Rosanne?** The answer is yes. He didn't love her, but he did respect her. He's definitely a protector at heart.

**4.) What's up with the lack of other characters/supporting cast? Why are the roles of others downplayed? **The reason for this is simple: it's been fourteen years, and this is a story about Hector and Farina. My worst habit is to side-track myself and describe everything else, but if I did that, this would be a poorly written story and it would be hard to follow. Thus, Uther's mention was casual (it's been fourteen years, it's not such a hard thing to think about anymore), and Fiora and Florina don't play a strong role in the story.

**5.) Why didn't Farina try to get in touch with her sisters?** This wasn't explained as well as it could have been, so I apologize. She's ashamed of what's happened to her. She does write to them, in the end.

**6.) Farina can't write?** Correct. As one person pointed out in a review, that makes contracting difficult. Farina has to trust people's word that they'll pay her. Honestly, I feel it's too perfect a match. It would explain why she flips out on Hector so much, wouldn't it? Bet she didn't sign a contract with him! And maybe she's never signed one with anyone, hence her paranoia anyway, when he seems dissatisfied with what he's paid her. (This means explaining away Dart's map, but Dart's so strange he probably talks to himself.)

Any other questions? Drop them in a review or PM.

Keep your eyes peeled for more Hector/Farina goodness. I will probably post more to my alternative account, "Dame!"

In _way_ more exciting news, Kender and I are cowriting a few pieces. We have four done—we're working hard on editing them. They'll be posted to the account "Cavaliers" if you're interested in reading them.

Thank you again for reading. I hope you enjoyed the story.


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